Waste Collection Technologies, Informal Waste Pickers, and Urban Exclusion: A Case Study of Calgary
Date
2020-09-22
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Waste management engineers and administrators have conceived of technological efficiency and optimization as the “modern” way to sustainable waste collection and management. This instrumental ideology of technology offers a progressive chant for modern waste collection technologies and a less enthusiastic one for the tools and techniques of informal waste pickers. Few efforts have gone into conceptualizing the social context and implication of waste collection technologies. In this thesis, I used a qualitative case study to explore the impact of residential waste collection technologies on the exclusion of informal waste pickers in Calgary. I draw on Andrew Feenberg's critical theory of technology to situate waste collection technologies within social, economic, and political contexts in Calgary. I argue that the social relations of ownership and control over waste collection technologies in Calgary illustrate complex and contested values, norms, and privileges, which create an unequal social, material, and technical relationship contributing to the exclusion of pickers and the exploitation of labor and waste. Calgary’s new curbside program protects the social norms of private asset ownership and consumerism, as well as the interest of private homeowners and some bureaucratic and large capitalist individuals in Calgary. A local third-sector organization, Calgary Can, has resisted these acts through its hook program; local bottle pickers have also resisted them through their collection activity and technologies. These realities push back against the colloquial understanding of modern waste collection technologies as value-free, a conception that dominates academic research and city policies and programs in waste management.
Description
Keywords
Waste management, Informal waste pickers, Waste collection, Critical Theory of Technology, Calgary
Citation
Adeyemi, D. M. (2020). Waste Collection Technologies, Informal Waste Pickers, and Urban Exclusion: A Case Study of Calgary (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.