Presentation short abstract

Chickens are fed waste, become waste, and produce waste. We examine how waste circulates and is transformed in UK poultry production. We reveal how circular economy logics shape multispecies injustices, exposing who benefits and who is rendered expendable from metabolic waste management.

Presentation long abstract

Chickens are fed waste, become waste, and produce waste. This paper examines the political ecologies of waste in the UK chicken industry. Rather than focusing solely on pollution management in animal agriculture, as is common in recent metabolic geography scholarship (Barua 2024; Searle et al. 2025), we develop a broader analytic that traces how diverse material flows become, and unbecome, “waste.” Our analysis centres on three intertwined waste streams in UK poultry production: (1) animal feed, in which chickens consume repurposed industrial residues, such as by-products from bioethanol production; (2) animal by-products (blood, viscera, necks, etc.) reprocessed into foods or feed, or burned for energy; and (3) poultry litter and manure converted into organic fertiliser. Each generates distinct environmental and health consequences: plantation expansion tied to bioethanol and soya production; metabolic disorders linked to cheap and readily available ultra-processed foods; and river pollution from fertiliser runoff. Drawing on stakeholder interviews and multi-sited ethnography, we trace the epistemic, discursive, and material transformations through which “wastes” acquire new value and circulate as resources. We interrogate the circular economy narratives that legitimise these transformations and the justice implications they produce for human and more-than-human health. Ultimately, we highlight the multispecies trade-offs and asymmetries of value embedded in waste conversion: what is lost, who benefits, and which lives are rendered expendable in the pursuit of circularity.