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Introduction to “One Word: Plastics Practicing Anthropology In Solid Waste Management: Usaid Clean Cities, Blue Ocean
Summary
This introductory essay discusses how anthropologists can contribute to improving solid waste management systems, including those dealing with plastic waste. The author argues that anthropological methods and perspectives are valuable for understanding the social and infrastructural dimensions of plastic waste management. This interdisciplinary approach is important because plastic pollution is as much a social problem as a technical one.
S olid waste (AKA 'garbage' or 'trash') provides an opportunity for anthropologists to practice and make a real difference in the environment, climate change, and in social and infrastructural inequalities. Solid waste, with its increasingly large plastic content, is also methodologically and theoretically interesting to more of us than archaeologists. The solid waste management (SWM) sector provides an extraordinary opportunity for fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration. And since the field has not been overpopulated by social scientists, it's possible to blaze a new substantive, methodological, and theoretical path.
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