THE NORMALITY OF INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL WASTE: ECONOMIC, TECHNICAL AND ORGANISATIONAL BARRIERS TO WASTE PREVENTION
- Available online in Detritus - Volume 13 - December 2020
- Pages 3-11
Released under CC BY-NC-ND
Copyright: © 2020 CISA Publisher
Abstract
This study shows that the production of industrial and commercial waste should form part of normal organisational practices. When asked about waste prevention, representatives of food, textile, electronics and construction companies in Sweden have difficulties highlighting concrete waste-prevention objectives, measures and outcomes. Instead, they highlight economic, technical, and organisational barriers that prevent them from engaging in waste prevention, thereby endowing the production of waste with an economic, technical and organisational rationality. This triple rationalisation of waste production amounts to the managerial normalisation of waste that obstructs the implementation of waste prevention policies. Thus, we suggest that these policies aim to de-normalise industrial and commercial waste in similar ways to the measures used to de-normalise household waste.Keywords
Editorial History
- Received: 04 May 2020
- Revised: 14 Sep 2020
- Accepted: 30 Sep 2020
- Available online: 28 Dec 2020
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