This book uncovers, explores and analyses the cultural and social factors and values that lie behind waste making, recycling and disposal in the Asia Pacific region, where impressive economic growth has led to significant increases in production, consumption and concomitant waste production.

This volume demonstrates the immense scope of waste as a multi-sectoral phenomenon, covering discussions on food, menstrual products, sewage, electronics, scrap, nuclear waste, plastics and even entire villages as they are submerged underwater by dam building, considered expendable in favour of economic growth. It discusses the wide range of approaches and contexts through which people interact with waste, including socio-economic analysis, participatory observation, laboratory science, art, video, installations, literature and photography. Case studies focusing on India, China and Japan, in addition to other regional examples, demonstrate the ubiquity of waste, materially and geographically. They reveal the multiple, sometimes contradictory, dimensions of waste: managing it can foster community building but can also exclude marginalized groups; waste can trigger innovative economic concepts and practices, but it can also pollute the oceans in large garbage gyres and it can wondrously change its nature from trash to useful components to new production, before being discarded once again.

This timely and wide-ranging collection of essays will be an important read for scholars, researchers and students in sustainability, development studies, discard studies, and social and cultural history, particularly focusing on countries in the Asia Pacific.

Frequently asked questions

Simply head over to the account section in settings and click on “Cancel Subscription” - it’s as simple as that. After you cancel, your membership will stay active for the remainder of the time you’ve paid for. Learn more here.

At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.

Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlego’s features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan you’ll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.

We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.

Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.

Yes, you can access Waste and Discards in the Asia Pacific Region by Viktor Pál, Iris Borowy, Viktor Pál, Iris Borowy in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Economics & Sustainable Development. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher

Routledge

Year

2023

ISBN

9781000898385

Edition

Topic

Economics

Subtopic

Sustainable Development

Index

Economics

Cover
Half Title Page
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction: contemporary cultural perspectives on discards in the Asia-Pacific region
2 Caste, hierarchy and cultural construction of food (waste?)
3 Environment by, with, and for the citizens: collective identity shaping the community-driven solid waste management in Kerala, India
4 Polluted histories, clean futures? Differing scenarios for an electronic waste circular economy in China
5 What type of trash are you? Steering “green” citizenship and self-responsibility in urban China
6 Becoming visible: an examination of Chen Qiulin’s Farewell Poem (2002) and Jia Zhangke’s Still Life (2006)
7 Individually and collectively grieving the Fukushima dead at a waste-mountain: a reading of post-3/11 novel “Hikari no Yama [Mountain of Light]” by Japanese Monk-writer Genyu Sokyu
8 Defining food (and its waste)
9 Waste through different eyes: multi-sited photovoice explorations
10 Afterword: planetary potlatch: scrutinizing the moral economy of recycling
Index