Beyond Recycling critically explores unasked questions around
recycling and its prominent position in contemporary thinking about
sustainability. It examines and challenges assumptions about why we
appear to have so wholeheartedly committed to recycling as a cultural
project.
Recycling has become a commonplace notion and widespread practice. Yet
its social, cultural and even environmental value has not been
considered carefully enough. This book considers recycling as a
contemporary cultural idea related to - but not wholly defined by - our
response to material waste. It seeks to reclaim recycling from the
environmentalists and waste management specialists, to explore the role
it plays in wider contemporary discourse. As we become increasingly
satiated, and in many cases sickened, by the excesses of modern
consumerism, we are rethinking our relationship with the physical stuff
that fills our lives. Dissatisfied with empty materialism, we seek new
ways to reuse our material culture. Recycling, turning something
considered to be waste into something with renewed value, is our primary
collective response to the problems arising from consumption; and it is
ripe for critical examination.
Beyond Recycling is a fascinating read for conscious consumers and
students in the creative arts, design, cultural studies, sustainability
and environmental studies.
