Projects / Programmes
The Invisible Life of Waste: Development of an Ethnography-based Solution for Waste Management in Households
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.03.00 |
Humanities |
Anthropology |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| S220 |
Social sciences |
Cultural anthropology, ethnology |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 5.04 |
Social Sciences |
Sociology |
waste management, environmental awareness, socio-cultural factors, people-centred development approach, human-technology interaction
Researchers (11)
Organisations (3)
Abstract
“Show me your garbage, and I will tell you who you are. Show me how much waste you produce, and I will tell you what kind of society you live in.” This is how Thomas Hylland Eriksen begins his recent book on waste. In the Invisible Life of Waste project, we extend Eriksen’s idea by designing a study that will foreground the invisible life of waste as well as the range of people engaged in waste production and management – from consumers to sanitation workers.
The main goal of the project is to develop an innovative IT solution that will help detect and visualise the production of waste in households as well as promote waste reduction. The development of the solution will be based on a people-centred approach and will begin with an analysis of waste management practices in six cities: Ljubljana (Slovenia), Graz (Austria), Trieste (Italy), Zagreb (Croatia), Oslo (Norway), and Dubai (UAE). The study will provide us with insights into the lifestyles of “invisible” actors – e.g. sanitation workers, labourers at landfills, and people working in recycling facilities – while also accounting for local attitudes to waste. In addition, the study will investigate waste as a relevant actor in global networks of production and consumption.
The project's city-specific recommendations on waste management in households will be available to government institutions and municipalities to prepare policies for the promotion of sustainable lifestyles and the transition to Zero Waste society. The project outputs will also be accessible to voluntary and community organisations (NGOs) engaged in the promotion of sustainable waste management to facilitate the realisation of their mission statements.
Finally, the project will establish a link between social sciences, humanities, and engineering in order to develop an interdisciplinary methodological framework for further cross-border comparative studies in other locations. It will prepare guidelines for developing similar people-centred IT solutions and recommendations for the promotion of sustainable lifestyles in connection with other mundane activities in households, such as commuting, gardening, and shopping.
Significance for science
The project will provide an in-depth comparative analysis of the social meaning of waste in six cities: Ljubljana, Trieste, Zagreb, Graz, Dubai, and Oslo. It will investigate trash as a relevant actor in global networks of production and consumption, present the lifestyles of “invisible” actors involved in waste management (e.g. sanitation workers, labourers at landfills, and people working in recycling facilities), and take into account local attitudes to waste. Special attention will be dedicated to households and their waste management practices by following the paths of waste and recording the stories of people who contribute to the delivery and removal of waste. The comparative study, foreseen to be published by 2020 in the edited volume Invisible Life of Waste, will tackle questions about the meaning of waste in different locations and help frame the optimal approaches for the promotion of sustainable waste management.
The IT solution to be developed in the project will upgrade existing technological solutions for waste management such as myWaste, a personalised app for phones, tablets, laptops, and PCs that provides support to households when it comes to environmental regulations. Another such solution that the IT solution designed in the project will build on is TrashTrack, an app developed by MIT's SENSEable City Lab that uses miniature RFID tags attached to different types of trash in order to track it through a city’s waste management system, thus revealing the journey of everyday objects in a series of real-time visualisations. The IT solution will also visualise the paths of waste in various phases – from households to landfills – and actively promote sustainability by offering constant user feedback. Our solution will be more robust than other solutions (RFID-based cans and containers will be used for longer periods) and adaptable to new locations and the expectations of householders. Usability of the new IT-based waste management solution will be developed with a participatory and people-centred approach, which will involve all relevant stakeholders, and tested in “real-life” settings. In addition, the results of its use in various locations (e.g., measurements of waste production) will be available for further investigations into waste management in households.
Finally, the project will establish new connections between social sciences, humanities, and technical sciences by developing an interdisciplinary methodological framework for further studies in other locations (also within international research calls). The Invisible Life of Waste project will thus prepare a guideline for developing similar IT solutions for the promotion of sustainable lifestyles in connection with other mundane activities in households such as commuting, gardening, and shopping.
Significance for the country
The Invisible Life of Waste project directly supports the EU Waste Framework Directive for moving towards a European recycling society with a high level of resource efficiency. By 2020, at the conclusion of the project, the preparation of waste materials for re-use and recycling will at least include paper, metal, plastic and glass from households and possibly from other origins and should be increased to a minimum of overall 50%. The project also supports the move to a more circular economy in which waste is eliminated and resources are used in an efficient and sustainable way by addressing waste management practices and adopting numerous strategies to encourage positive change. Improved waste management will help to reduce health and environmental problems, reduce greenhouse gas emissions (directly by cutting emissions from landfills and indirectly by recycling materials which would otherwise be extracted and processed), and avoid negative impacts at the local level such as landscape deterioration due to landfilling, local water, soil and air pollution, as well as littering. Becoming a recycling society also represents a relevant economic opportunity. If EU states recycled 70% of their waste, it could create at least half a million new jobs across Europe.
The applied nature of the project is important for the Slovenian and EU business sectors, especially for the development of telematics industry for commercial vehicles (in our case sanitation vehicles). This is an exceptionally promising industry with a projected annual growth of 24%, which will be globally worth approximately 45 billion EUR by 2020, according to data gathered by Global Industry Analysts. The IT solution will make it possible for CVS Mobile, our industry partner in the project, to improve its existing logistics and fleet management solutions for sanitation vehicles and to introduce new features in Italy, Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia, where the company is already strongly present. Another important aspect of the project is the fact that the project focuses on new potential markets in Dubai (UAE) and Oslo (Norway), which will make it easier for the company developing the new IT solution to reinforce its position in Europe and to gradually expand its services to other promising regions, among them the Middle East. The expansion of the company would lead to job creation in and outside Slovenia and new opportunities for cooperation between the science and business sectors.
Most important scientific results
Interim report
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Interim report
