Presentation short abstract

How denial, repression and dismissal of waste positions it as a site of radical political potential for environmental and social justice.

Presentation long abstract

More than one million tons of hazardous waste are traded among Canada, Mexico, and the United States each year. In addition to managing a significant proportion of their own waste, all three North American countries are now net hazardous waste importers. In this paper, I examine how transnationally traded hazardous waste is managed as both a risk to local communities, governed by local, state/provincial and national institutions and an internationally traded good, the transboundary movement of which is facilitated by supranational trade agreements. I trace how this imbrication of environmental risk and economic value help to produce distinct flows of hazardous materials across North America.

More broadly, I draw on Marxist and psychoanalytic analyses to connect refuse and refusal and argue that, rather than an afterthought, waste is a necessary component of modern capitalism whose necessity is denied by claims about recycling and circular economies; repressed by distancing and removal (out of sight, out of mind); and dismissed as an unfortunate externality. I further argue that it is in part these processes of denial, repression and dismissal of the fundamental importance of waste that positions it as a site of radical political potential for environmental and social justice.