Paper long abstract:

With the development of its urban population and the change of economic habits (particularly the use of plastic or electronic products), Mongolia is facing a serious waste crisis. Mongolian authorities pass laws to frame waste management habits (2003, 2012, 2017). However, nomadic herders perpetuate efficient ways of treating biodegradable waste, which they apply to manufactured waste. It led to the scattering of those waste in the steppe.

This paper will be about the Mongolian concept of domestic waste and the trajectory given to rubbish through yurts and camps.

More than throwing waste into a specific place, Mongolian's concern is above all with the correct implementation of the action of throwing, which allows to establish the morality of the household's members in the eyes of others. Moreover, removing wisely an object from a whole to contain it (as is done for waste) is a recurrent habit in Mongolian domestic life and allows to harness fortune.

This paper is based on a 3 months fieldwork in rural Mongolia that I did to write my master thesis. I collected my data through participant observation and the analyze of waste dumps' composition.

The anthropological approach provides a new perspective on household waste management in Mongolia and sheds light on public policies and citizen movements advocating recycling and waste reduction, but also resistance to these campaigns. The new knowledge it brings will be a theoretical and practical contribution for research on waste management in other transitional spaces and, more broadly, for the anthropology of Mongolia.