Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 7.5 Installation for the pre-sorting of household waste in a Shanghai district. Photo S. Barles,
January 2008
large public services companies, for incineration. The cure was often worse than
the disease: job losses for salvage dealers, lack of funds for the upkeep of the vehicle
eet and facilities, decline in service. In the last several years it has emerged that it
would be best to recognize and integrate the activities of the informal sector in the
management process, but this idea has not yet translated into any results. The situation
in emerging countries is also of concern, where the adaptation of urban services does
not match the speed of processing (Fig.
7.5
).
7.6 Conclusion
The history of waste mirrors that of the societies that produced it, and their rela-
tionship with the environment and the resources they mobilized in the process. The
very notion of waste has
—
a
material that its owner intends to discard. What was at one time considered waste
may no longer be considered so now, and what is waste today may not have been
deemed so in the past. One hundred and fty years ago, oyster shells were a
fertilizer of repute, now they often end up in a dustbin, land
uctuated before taking its contemporary meaning
ll or incinerator.
