Short abstract:

We explore transitions in contemporary sewage management and visions of the circular reuse of biosolids. In light of the toxic contamination of wastewater we argue that engaging with sewage offers a vantage point for attending to the materiality of programmes of infrastructural transformation.

Long abstract:

Wastewater and sewage systems constitute a critical, if largely invisible, underbelly of contemporary water infrastructures. Emerging in the nineteenth century, through the consolidation of public health, the sanitary movement and environmental science and characterised by technologies of industrial ecosystems (Schneider 2011), sewage infrastructures have recently emerged as sites of renewed political concern. In this context, visions of the circular reuse and anticipated monetisation of sewage have been troubled by a recognition of the ways in which wastewater is commonly contaminated by a range of toxic substances (including PFAS, microplastics and heavy metals). In this paper we explore transitions in contemporary waste management practices in light of these dynamics, basing our analysis on empirical research into the potential reuse of the solid waste produced through sewage treatment – what is commonly referred to as sludge or biosolids. Working with co-productionist and relational accounts of socio-technical transitions, we argue that wastewater, and the potential reuse of biosolids, offers a key vantage point for attending to the materiality of programmes of infrastructural transition and how visions of socio-technical transformation co-produce a “range of meanings, knowings, doings, and modes of organising” (Longhurst & Chilvers 2019). We conclude that, far from a merely technical challenge, anticipated transitions in sewage treatment entail situated negotiations of the material mass and volume of solid waste, complex more-than-human and chemosocial relations, and dynamic and changing climatic conditions.