Contested Waste : Environmental conflicts and waste picker resistance in the Global South

Contested Waste’ examines socio-environmental conflicts involving waste pickers in the Global South, uncovering the systemic injustices that underpin contemporary waste policies. Driven by the privatisation of waste management, these conflicts expose the “recycling paradox”: while waste pickers make critical, uncompensated contributions to sustainability, they are further excluded by new policies.

This book analyses how modern waste policies marginalise waste pickers, triggering conflicts in cities across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Drawing on over 70 conflicts documented in the Global Environmental Justice Atlas, the book explores how privatisation, incineration, and waste enclosures displace informal recyclers and worsen the sustainability crisis. These processes exemplify "capital accumulation by dispossession," as waste streams are enclosed and privatised, excluding waste pickers, and "capital accumulation by contamination," as environmental burdens are shifted onto marginalised communities. The book also showcases waste pickers’ resilience as they organise to fight for justice and equitable waste systems.

Essential for scholars, policymakers, and activists in environmental justice, development, and urban studies, this book reveals the structural drivers of waste conflicts and the transformative power of grassroots resistance in shaping sustainable and inclusive urban futures.