Draft:Wasteocene

Wasteocene

The Wasteocene is a concept introduced by environmental historian Marco Armiero to describe a historical epoch defined not simply by human impact on the Earth (as in the Anthropocene), but by the systemic production of waste, disposability, and inequality. It emphasizes that environmental degradation is not the result of humanity as a whole, but of specific socio-economic systems that generate both material waste and “wasted lives”[1] populations and territories treated as disposable.

Definition

The Wasteocene refers to a historical condition defined not by waste as a material artifact, but by the relations of wasting. Waste, in this case, is not something that exists and is then managed or discarded, but rather an effect of processes that are continually producing disposability, inequality, othering, and exclusion.[1]

Instead of a homogeneous 'human' impact on the earth, the Wasteocene asserts that environmental damage is unevenly produced through particular socio-historical and political-economic configurations. Central to the concept are 'wasting relationships' that are relational processes which render certain people, places and forms of life expendable in order to reproduce accumulation and profits elsewhere, often working through a logic of extraction, othering and the differentiation of value[2]. Waste is therefore entangled in social relationships and, in this regard, the Wasteocene eschews interpretations which portray waste as a 'neutral or technical by-product'. In contrast, it views the production of 'wasted people' and 'wasted ecosystems' as outcomes of socio-ecological processes, not solely material, but relational and symbolic processes determining who is included within systems of care and value and who is excluded from it.

Another feature of wasting relationships is their ability to produce various kinds of toxicity. On one level, they represent capitalist relations embedded in the materiality of producing pollution and physical damage often concentrated on certain communities and; on another level, they produce 'toxic narratives', i.e., dominant storytelling forms which obscure the structural inequalities and erase the socio-political roots of the socio-ecological problems by directing blame on victims and marginalized groups[1]. Within the body of critical and alternative proposals to Anthropocene (such as Capitalocene), the Wasteocene takes a position by emphasizing relationships and power dynamics over homogeneous notions of 'humanity' while calling into question a particular history of responsibility for and production of the environmental crisis. As such, the concept has also operated as narrative intervention more than concept, disputing universalist visions of environmental catastrophe and calling for the recognition of lived experience of damage. Fundamentally historical and relational, the Wasteocene links ecological deterioration with a politics of differentiation in which race, class, gender and other relations of inequality become embedded in the material world. It seeks to move from waste to wasting as an active process that constitutes the making of certain lives visible and valuable, and other lives disposable.

Origin of the concept

The concept was developed by Marco Armiero and collaborators within the field of environmental humanities and political ecology. It is most notably articulated in his book, "Wasteocene: Stories from the Global Dump".

The Wasteocene builds several thought currents such as:

The concept also critiques Anthropocene debates arguing that the term obscures responsibility by treating humanity as homogeneous and equally responsible for the advent of this epoch

Armiero’s work integrates historical analysis with narrative and storytelling, emphasizing lived experiences of communities affected by waste regimes. The concept has been further discussed in academic literature addressing waste governance, toxic environments, labor and disposability and othering, global inequalities in resource use and pollution.

Examples cited by Armiero

Cancer Alley

Cancer Alley is an area between New Orleans and Baton Rouge with the largest concentration of fossil fuel and petrochemical plants and refineries in the Western Hemisphere. The risk of getting cancer in this area is almost double what the US government acceptable threshold is [3] (source). The majority of people living nearby are marginalized and under-resourced. The government continued to issue permits for more plants to be built and more pollution to be created. It was the local communities who came together to fight against them, demanding that their homes, water, land and bodies not be used as a dumping zone for fossil and petrochemical industries.

Vajont dam disaster

In 1963, Vajont Dam, a hydro-electric dam north of Venice, Italy flooded the Piave Valley, when a megatsunami came over the top, killing between 1,900 to 2,500. The 250m wave could have been prevented had the government listened to warnings from journalists that landslides and earth movements had been detected. The Italian government chose to sue the journalists for ‘undermining the social order’ rather than put into place serious prevention measures. 60 years later the government forcefully replaced the original memorial site created by the people connected to those who were killed with a generic memorial site in an attempt to quiet their anger. Now known among the people as part of the price of economic growth.[4]

References

Citations

[1] Armiero, Marco (2021-04). "Wasteocene: Stories from the Global Dump". Elements in Environmental Humanities. doi:10.1017/9781108920322

[2] Armiero, Marco; De Angelis, Massimo (2017-04-01). "Anthropocene: Victims, Narrators, and Revolutionaries". South Atlantic Quarterly. 116 (2): 345–362. doi:10.1215/00382876-3829445. ISSN 0038-2876

[3] Buerk, Ellen (2025-01-01). "Sacrifice Zone: Conciliating Racial Discrimination in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley" Under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination". Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law. 57 (1): 491. ISSN 0008-7254.

[4] Interesting, All That's (2020-11-11). "The 1963 Dam Failure That Unleashed An 860-Foot Tsunami And Flattened A Town". All That's Interesting. Retrieved 2026-05-21.

  • "Wasteocene". Cambridge.org.
  • Anthropocene or waste? What changes
  • Capitalocene – University of Copenhagen
  1. ^ a b c d Armiero, Marco (April 2021). "Wasteocene: Stories from the Global Dump". Elements in Environmental Humanities. doi:10.1017/9781108920322. ISBN 978-1-108-92032-2.
  2. ^ a b Armiero, Marco; De Angelis, Massimo (2017-04-01). "Anthropocene: Victims, Narrators, and Revolutionaries". South Atlantic Quarterly. 116 (2): 345–362. doi:10.1215/00382876-3829445. ISSN 0038-2876.
  3. ^ a b Buerk, Ellen (2025-01-01). "Sacrifice Zone: Conciliating Racial Discrimination in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley" Under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination". Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law. 57 (1): 491. ISSN 0008-7254.
  4. ^ a b Interesting, All That's (2020-11-11). "The 1963 Dam Failure That Unleashed An 860-Foot Tsunami And Flattened A Town". All That's Interesting. Retrieved 2026-05-21.

Content Disclaimer

Informasi ini disarikan dari Wikipedia dan disajikan kembali untuk tujuan edukasi. Konten tersedia di bawah lisensi CC BY-SA 3.0. Kami tidak bertanggung jawab atas ketidakakuratan data yang bersumber dari kontribusi publik tersebut.

  1. The information displayed on this website is sourced in part or in whole from Wikipedia and has been adapted for the purpose of restating it. We strive to provide accurate and relevant information, however:
  2. There is no guarantee of absolute accuracy. Wikipedia is an open, collaborative project that can be edited by anyone, so information is subject to change.
  3. It is not intended to constitute professional advice. The content displayed is for informational and educational purposes only. For important decisions (e.g., medical, legal, or financial), please consult a professional.
  4. Content copyright. Wikipedia is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (CC BY-SA). This means that content may be reused with appropriate attribution and shared under a similar license.
  5. Responsible use. Any risk arising from the use of information from this website is entirely the responsibility of the user.