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Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses waste prevention and recycling programs in the marketplace of Anderlecht, in Brussels. It does that by retracing the assemblages of discourses, actors, and artifacts which underpin waste prevention and recycling questioning their impact on the marketplace community and users.

Paper long abstract:

The governance of everyday waste handling practices is increasingly central to waste prevention and recycling programs. Yet, little attention is paid to the labor which does the work of waste selection, classification, and separate collection at the origin of these programs. The paper retraces the assemblages of waste discourses, actors, and artifacts which underpin waste prevention and recycling in the marketplace of Anderlecht, in Brussels. The case is of interest since it concerns the largest, multicultural, and popular city marketplace, located in a poor inner-city neighborhood and which represents a resource for part of the most socioeconomically precarious Brussels populations. Over a decade, under the banner of 'sustainability', the private company who manage the site has developed multiple initiatives to prevent litter and control the cost of the waste management by introducing new regulations (e.g. PAYT) and engaging with both waste recycling companies and 'zero waste' militants. Yet, it remains to better understand the impact of these initiatives on the community served by the market and the market vendors in particular to which the waste recycling scheme imposes a largest deal of labor. The paper presents the results of a series of fieldworks and interviews with key informants and local stakeholders conducted over the past year.