Student: Max Haworth
Graduation date: May 2016
Type: Concentration (single major)
Date approved: November 2013
Summary
Waste is an inescapable part of life and when populations become more concentrated, strategies need to be developed and implemented to combat arising problems from an increase in concentration of waste. My concentration will discuss the processes and life cycles of waste (from production to disposal), especially of commodity chains (e-waste and plastics), and the social and ecological implications it has. It will also examine interactions in the political sphere with social movements in post-industrialized countries as well as the allocation of waste to developing countries. I will be basing my concentration on the Environmental Inequality Formation (EIF) method which synthesizes three major points: “(a) the importance of process and history, (b) the role of multiple stakeholder relationships, and (c) a life-cycle approach to the study of hazards.” (Pellow 2000). I have chosen to situate this concentration on post-industrialized countries because these countries are chief consumers of e-goods and plastics, and as such contribute significantly to those waste streams. The waste streams of e-waste and plastics are ubiquitous to post-industrialized countries due to their consumer culture. This has made these waste-streams non-point source pollutants in that there are many contributors to this waste stream, and there is no concentrated source. This means that consumers are also contributing to this problem not just the companies producing and disposing of plastics and e-waste. Plastics and e-waste are also both persistent and accumulate causing problems with toxicity that disrupt ecosystems as well as human health. Another reason why these waste-streams are important to this subject is that both of these materials are allocated to places away from the sight of the consumers with e-waste being allocated to industrializing countries for processing and disposal, while plastics are disposed into landfills and barges that end up accumulating into gyres in the ocean and then disseminating across the pacific slowly collecting on coastal beaches (Vannela 2012). This plays into the political economy in that these waste-streams are produced out of the consumerist culture of these post-industrial countries. “Most E-waste is disposed in landfills. Effective reprocessing technology, which recovers the valuable materials with minimal environmental impact, is expensive. Consequently, although illegal under the Basel Convention, rich countries export an unknown quantity of E-waste to poor countries, where recycling techniques include burning and dissolution in strong acids with few measures to protect human health and the environment.” (Robinson 2009). Countries and islands affected by plastic pollution are those with coastal region bordering the Pacific where the circulation of oceanic gyres where plastic collects and then is moved around through those currents and wash onto beaches and disrupting surrounding oceanic ecosystems. This presents, inherent inequalities of who is affected by these pollutants of these waste streams, where countries that generate less of these waste (poorer industrializing countries) are receiving the highest impact of toxicity because they are the sites where disposal is located. However responses to these problems have arisen in the forms of governmental policy and organizations as well as social movements pushing for policies to happen. “The environmental effects of E-waste disposal are drawing increasing attention from politicians, Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) such as Greenpeace (www.greenpeace.org), the Basel Action Network (www.ban.org), the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (www.svtc.org)” (Robison 2009). Movements have arisen from growing awareness such as the plastic bag movement where plastic bag bans have been made to reduce the amount of plastics going into the ocean (Tough 2007). These movements and organizations have occurred in post-industrial countries, and fall under the assumption that “As abundance increases, the importance of material things may diminish; thus as American society becomes more materialistic, it may very well become less materialistic” (Blumberg 1974). This means that as a population becomes less invested in materials due to overabundance, they become less enamored with the object itself and become aware of the overall process of creation and disposal. I am interested in those relationships between those benefits and risks dealing with allocation and disposal of these waste-streams. I am interested in how social movements are arising and how they deal with these issues, in particular how these social movements are grappling with the political economic issues and how social movements contribute to policy. This relates to the themes of “Waste”, “Environmental Movements”, “Political Economy and Environment”, and ultimately “Oceans”. Not all of these themes are equal in importance where the theme of “Waste” and its interaction with “Environmental Movements” and “Political Economy and Environment” are the sole focus, whereas the theme of “Oceans” relates to this concentration as it represents the “sink” of where waste leads, and its interactions with biota and ultimately relates back to the health and welfare of humans with the plastic gyres created by the inefficiencies of waste.
The study of e-waste and plastics generated by post-industrial nations lends itself to situated contexts. With every upgrade to a computer or phone more e-waste is added to the already growing waste stream. “The rapid growth of computing that is driving E-waste production. In the next five years, one billion computers will be retired” (Robinson 2009). “E-waste is an emerging issue, driven by the rapidly increasing quantities of complex end-of-life electronic equipment. The global level of production, consumption and recycling induces large flows of both toxic and valuable substances.” (Widmer 2005). This also includes allocation from post-industrial countries United States and Europe to industrializing countries such as India, China and South Africa (Widmer 2005). An example of e-waste affecting human health can be found in Guiyu, China. “Aerial contamination with dioxins at Guiyu has resulted in levels of human exposure some 15–56 times the WHO recommended maximum intake. Elevated levels of dioxins were found in human milk, placentas and hair, indicating that dioxins are being taken up by humans, from the air, water, or foodstuffs, at sufficient levels to pose a serious health risk.” (Robinson 2009). As a response to this growing problem, the WEEE Knowledge Partnership program which is funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, as a program to improve management of this e-waste in these developing countries. This is situated in the end of the life cycle of waste (after production and consumption), and this example shows a response through programs and policy to this issue Another situated context can be found in the Pacific where there is an issue with plastic pollution in oceanic gyres that have been contributed by plastic waste from surrounding countries such as Japan, Australia, United States, New Zealand, etc. This has affected benthic organisms such as plankton and has penetrated the food chain. In the Midway Atoll (a sea-bird sanctuary), birds are dying because they are eating fish that are filled with plastic particles, causing these birds to be unable to digest their food (Auman 1997). Awareness of this topic of plastic waste disrupting ecosystems has fueled social movements as well as provided fodder for social movement campaigns to incite awareness. These movements “force a rethinking of current understandings of norm dynamics and policy implementation. The patterns of these movements are explored and characterised as a South to North, non-networked and multi-scalar series of events that together represent a globally significant emergence of a new environmental norm.” (Clapp and Swanston 2009). This context deals with both the beginning and the end of the life-cycle of waste where the education and awareness campaigns focus on where plastic ends up which is in the Pacific Ocean, while campaigns advocating for plastic bag bans focus on the front end of the life-cycle (production) trying to stop the production and use of it. The life-cycles of these wastes have created so many interactions, and the study of these life-cycles will cultivate a better understanding of this issue of waste.
References
Auman, Heidi J., JAMES P. Ludwig, JOHN P. Giesy, and T. H. E. O. Colborn. “Plastic ingestion by Laysan albatross chicks on Sand Island, Midway Atoll, in 1994 and 1995.” Albatross biology and conservation (1997): 239-244.
Questions
- Descriptive: What tactics and policies are social movements using to influence the public and the government with regards to waste? What responses have they received so far?
- Explanatory: Why are social movements arising against these waste-streams? How are environmental movements mobilizing and networking?
- Evaluative: Are improving networks within and outside environmental movements effective in increasing their impact? What are the impacts of social movements on government policy? How successful have they been?
Concentration courses
- Geology 270 (Oceanography, 4 credits), spring 2014. Pacific Ocean, and understanding the processes of the ocean. This will help me answer the question of the life-cycles of waste and its effects.
- Econ 250 (Radical Political Economics, 4 credits), spring 2015. This class will help bolster my understanding of connections between different economic structures and dynamics and political strategies and struggles. This will relate to the political economy aspect as well as the social movement aspect of my concentration and will help look at political and social trends through these interactions within different economic structures and see how these could relate to the life-cycles of my chosen waste-streams (e-waste and plastics).
- IS 241 (Japan Past and Present, 4 credits), summer 2014 study abroad. This is part of the Japan Mt. Fuji Trip that I am applying to, and this will give me a hands on and in more depth on the culture of Japan and help develop my ethnography skills that will be useful to situate my research about waste life-cycles and how they interact with culture of Japan. This will also expand on the historical context of the social and waste and see how they evolved over time.
- ENVS 499 (Independent Study, 4 credits), summer 2014, study abroad. I am applying the Mt. Fuji Trip this summer and plan to do an independent study on plastics and the evolution of culture around plastics in Japan. This will be a very important for my concentration and will help see where the social and ecological merge in a situated place in Japan.
- SOAN 245 (Visual Anthropology, 4 semester credits), spring 2014. This class is pertinent to my concentration because it will look at the ethics of observation and look at the role of consumption in constructing visual meaning and the challenge of interpreting indigenously produced visual depictions of self and other. This will apply to the culture aspect of my concentration and help me gain more of an understanding of how people give meaning to consumption and why people why value aesthetics of objects.
Arts and humanities courses
- HIST 261 (Global Environmental History, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.
- PHIL 215 (Philosophy and the Environment, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.