The research project Circular Grassroots invites to a series of four webinars on how local initiatives can contribute to more just and sustainable cities. This is the second webinar.
Book Launch Event: “Contested Waste: Environmental Conflicts and Waste Picker Resistance in the Global South”
This webinar is a launch event of the book “Contested Waste: Environmental Conflicts and Waste Picker Resistance in the Global South” edited by Federico de Maria, Daniel Vico and Lucía Fernández. The book examines socio-environmental conflicts involving waste pickers in the Global South, uncovering the systemic injustices that underpin contemporary waste policies. Driven by the privatisation of waste management, these conflicts expose the “recycling paradox”: while waste pickers make critical, uncompensated contributions to sustainability, they are further excluded. This book analyses how modern waste policies marginalise waste pickers, triggering conflicts in cities across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Drawing on over 70 conflicts documented in the Global Environmental Justice Atlas, the book explores how privatisation, incineration, and waste enclosures displace informal recyclers and worsen the sustainability crisis. These processes exemplify “Capital Accumulation by Dispossession,” as waste streams are enclosed and privatised, excluding waste pickers, and “Capital Accumulation by Contamination,” as environmental burdens are shifted onto marginalised communities. The book also showcases waste pickers’ resilience as they organise to fight for justice and equitable waste systems.
Essential for scholars, policymakers, and activists in environmental justice, development, and urban studies, this book reveals the structural drivers of waste conflicts and the transformative power of grassroots resistance in shaping sustainable and inclusive urban futures.
Panellists/Editors
Federico Demaria, University of Barcelona
Daniele Vico (University of Barcelona, former ILO
Lucía Fernández Gabard, WIEGO
Discussants
Nohra Padilla, National Association of Recyclers, Colombia
Manisha Anantharaman, Sciences Po, Paris
Casper Edmondsm, ILO
Moderator
Federico Parra, WIEGO, Colombia
Upcoming webinar
What Gets Valued? Circular Grassroots Beyond Monetary Value
Grassroots Spatial Governance
