Description
New Yorkers generate millions of tons of trash annually, which, through the magic of infrastructure and one of the largest waste management systems in the world, disappears from city sidewalks each night. Under pressure from environmentalists, activists, policymakers, and industry, the New York City Department of Sanitation started exploring ways to divert organic material from the waste stream, and in 2013, launched its composting pilot program.
Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork with community composters and microhaulers in New York City, alongside the rollout of the city's curbside organics collection system, Composting Utopia describes how local, grassroots organizations intervened in the city's waste system, enacting change and presenting an alternative vision of the composting city. As Guy Shaffer argues, movement-driven infrastructure projects develop new tools for organizing the world, give communities agency over urban design, and promote just sustainability.
Author: Guy Schaffer
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Published: 11/24/2023
Pages: 264
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.82lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.12w x 0.48d
ISBN13: 9781625347695
ISBN10: 1625347693
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Activism & Social Justice
- Science | Environmental Science (see also Chemistry | Environmental)
- Social Science | Technology Studies