Sustaining Waste – Sociological Perspectives on Recycling a Hybrid Object - Implementing Environmental and Resource Management - page 284

is taken-for-granted as contributing to ecological sustainability. Western environ-
mentalists, both governments and many grassroots activists, share the common
sense of 'the more recycling, the better'. However, recycling is merely one mo-
ment of materialised social relations between humans and things, in Western so-
cieties characterised by capitalist production and consumption. The aim of this pa-
per, then, is to focus on the social context of this very moment and, therefore, we
ask: how can social theory be of help to problematise environmental management
practices and technologies, including their social and environmental implications?
To make this practically relevant I focus on theories that may illuminate the role
of the actor, i.e. the environmental manager. By far the most influential discourse
on recycling seems to be Ecological Modernisation . Its paradigm is one of green-
ing the state and industry by more efficient industrial production enabled by all-
encompassing capitalist markets. However, both critical academics as well as
ecologically oriented social movements argue that, in fact, the hegemonic paths of
greening are sustaining 'unsustainability' (Blühdorn and Welsh 2007). To uncover
the relevancy of social relations embedded in recycling practices I draw on a case
of an environmental manager of a small organisation who set up a recycling net-
work for a nightclub. I encountered this case during ethnographic research on en-
vironmental managers in Germany, Austria and the UK between 2006 and 2008.
The method used, ethnography, is increasingly deemed useful for research on (en-
vironmental) management 2 .
Three theoretical approaches serve to frame this set of practices which bring
about a recycling network. First, the hegemonic approach to conceptualise green-
ing of organisations, Ecological Modernisation Theory , enables us to understand
how recycling can easily be thought of as use- and meaningful. Second, Actor-
network theory , a relational method developed to scrutinise the enacting of science
and technology, illuminates the social context in which recycling is socially and
materially constructed as necessary and which is embedded within recycling.
Third, a Bourdieusian approach, i.e. one drawing on the writings of the French so-
ciologist Pierre Bourdieu , problematises the societal conditions under which recy-
cling is use- and meaningful. This engagement with conflicting theoretical ap-
proaches, a kaleidoscope of social theory, allows us to question everyday waste
and one of the prime technologies to handle it, i.e. recycling.
By sketching this kaleidoscopic view it becomes possible to imagine the com-
plexity of recycling reality. A single theoretical approach alone would risk draw-
ing too nice and neat a picture of recycling. In the following, therefore, I will out-
line the case and, thereafter, apply the three theoretical perspectives to it to
illustrate the myriad social aspects of recycling. The discussion of these perspec-
tives points us to limits of manageability. Finally, by way of summarising, the
conclusion argues that recycling may sustain unsustainability both materially and
socially. Thus, inspired by Keller (1998, p. 290), recycling emerges as a useful ob-
ject to question the social technologies which Western societies are based upon.

2

Cf. e.g. Howard-Grenville et al. 2008, Hassard et al. 2007.