Thursday 13th February - Saturday 15th February 2003
Copenhagen, Denmark

Session 9: Waste, Injustice and Economics

Patricia Bell and Peter Phillimore
Living with Pollution – How Household Dirt and Waste are Dealt with in a Culturally Mixed Industrial Town in Germany
School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England

This paper draws on data gathered through 15 months of intensive ethnographic fieldwork exploring how residents in Ludwigshafen, Germany manage the daily business of living side by side with the world’s largest chemical production facility in single ownership. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, the industry was in an expansive phase and recruited guest workers in large numbers, today almost one quarter of the town’s population are immigrants, many the descendents of these Gastarbeiter. Our enquiry allowed respondents to define for themselves concerns about pollution with some interesting results. In a town which processes a wide variety of dangerous and poisonous chemicals, litter emerged as an environmental issue of major importance. Furthermore separating household waste was the most often cited individual activity undertaken to care for the environment. Although interviews with representatives of the well established Italian and Turkish communities elicited very similar responses regarding perception of and strategies for managing pollution, the immigrant community were frequently perceived by German respondents as not caring for the environment and, specifically, not towing the line in relation to separating household waste. In some interviews the immigrant community themselves were identified as a risk factor, threatening a dilution of German values, standards and institutions. In this sense, the immigrant community, particularly non Christian and recent immigrants, were themselves perceived as polluters, matter very much out of place (Douglas 1975:50). The view that the immigrant community doesn’t care about the environment is not restricted to the lay public, throughout the 15 months of fieldwork a variety of meetings, discussions and events on environmental issues were observed. Representatives of the immigrant community were noticeably absent as were attempts by environmental activists to address them directly. The exception is provided by Ludwigshafen Town Council which produces information in several languages on the correct separation and disposal of household waste. Drawing on new interview material with regulators, residents and activists, the authors will explore how local pollution concerns are negotiated and managed against this multi cultural backdrop.

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Ruby Pap
Solid Waste Management in Jamaica: Household and Institutional Behaviours
NOAA Coastal Fellow, Marina Monitoring Project, San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, California Street, San Francisco, CA 94111, USA

Research on solid waste management in developing countries frequently focuses one of two spheres: institutional behaviour and household behaviour. This research in Jamaica concentrated on both, and found that household behaviours are inherently linked to institutional behaviour, both at the local and national level. Research was conducted in the metropolitan capital of Kingston (national level), and in the non-metropolitan Parish of Westmoreland (local level). Semi-structured interviews with organizational and citizen stakeholders were conducted, and stakeholder and organizational analysis were used as analytical tools. Relationships between national and local government (Kingston and Westmoreland respectively) in formulating new national solid waste policy and technology, and the relationship between citizens and local government in implementing policy were thoroughly examined.
Results showed that citizen behaviours in regards to household solid waste management in Westmoreland are formed in part by wider institutional structures and arrangements at the local and national level. While adoption of new technologies (sanitary landfills, transfer stations, and modernized streamlined policy) go halfway to solving solid waste problems, technological change must go hand in hand with meaningful institutional reform and genuine efforts to improve relations between citizens and government.
National level government in Kingston has claimed responsibility for solid waste policy and planning, but solutions have not been adequately pursued in non-metropolitan areas like Westmoreland. Local government is struggling to solve local waste management problems, with little autonomy to do so. Because of the local government’s past failed solid waste management practices, citizens’ lack trust in new methods and technology, and are crying NIMBY (Not in My Backyard). In order to solve local environmental and social problems, national government must give local government autonomy and participation in the solid waste planning process, and local government must use this to promote positive change, and gain the trust and participation of local citizens.

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J Wulfhorst
Tribal Sovereignty, Injustice & America’s Nuclear Waste
Dept. of Ag Econ & Rural Sociology, University of Idaho, P.O. Box 442334, Moscow, ID 83844-2334, USA

Despite the United States’ recent federal government decision to site a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, high-level nuclear waste management is one of America’s most significant contemporary policy failures. After already more than 20 years and over $7 billion of research and assessment, experts estimate Yucca Mountain may become operational by 2012 at the earliest. On-site storage of spent fuel rods at many reactors in the United States will allegedly run out in 2007. This leaves a significant gap of time and space within the best case scenario of the current management plan.
Ironically, one small sovereign Indian nation—the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians—remains active in the pursuit to host a temporary storage facility for nuclear waste. The Goshute reservation, geographically surrounded by the state of Utah, is located in a desert valley on the edge of the Great Basin. As such, the site is environmentally suitable for nuclear waste storage in many respects. However, elected officials, other Tribes in Utah and the region, environmental activists, and other community leaders strongly oppose the Goshutes’ attempt to lease part of their reservation to a private consortium of nuclear power utilities for the facility. The litigation is just beginning.
Using 1) social science literature, 2) legal reasoning from Indian law, and 3) qualitative data from fieldwork conducted in Utah around this issue, this paper will argue that the Skull Valley Goshutes face a structure of environmental inequity tied to a state’s social, political, and economic power that is unjust. Recent decades have seen both an Indian renaissance for self-determination and –sufficiency, as well as increasing action on the part of states to limit Tribal sovereignty. The outcome of this case will set a new precedent for environmental law between the federal, state, and tribal governments.