Epistemological. [Global Waste Management by Kamila Pope]

WINNER: 2020 International Solid Waste Association Publication Award

Among other factors, rapid global population growth, our development model and patterns of production and consumption have increased waste generation worldwide to unsustainable rates. This rise has led to crises in many countries where waste management practices are no longer sound. Global Waste Management outlines the emerging global waste crisis considering the perspectives of developed and developing countries around the world and the international relationships between them. This book provides an ecological viewpoint as well as studying these problems from a legal and justice standpoint.

Global Waste Management contextualises the problems faced when dealing with waste including the causes and origins. Focus is given to cross border waste transfer, as an ongoing and controversial practice, making waste management a global matter. This book scrutinizes existing international, European and Brazilian regulation on waste to highlight the complexity of the subject and the weaknesses of the law. Using a critical and socio-ecological approach, the book proposes an original model of governance to support a new system of global waste management that takes into account ecological sustainability and social justice to overcome the waste crisis. To create these models, a theoretical framework on socio-ecological justice is developed and combined with different discourses and theories described throughout the book. This is the essential guide to understanding the global waste crisis and the future of waste management. 

If you're looking for a book to feel smart, this is it. But it might take some work. I started reading Kamila Pope's Global Waste Management: Models for Tackling the International Waste Crisis pre-lockdown, pre-pandemic. I read about a third of the way through before I inevitably put my reading of the book on pause. And surely, a portion of the delay can be blamed on the psychological stress we were all under (though I'm sure some dove deeper into their books), but I was taking pauses in my read from its inception. This is a book you sit with and let transform you as you understand the message. And in fact, that is what it did. Even as I sat not reading in pause, the book stayed on my mind, because even that third taught me so much. 

Inevitably, as one learns more about the different facets of and approaches to the environmental crisis, one seeks to learn more about those facets of and approaches to the environmental crisis. And one does. In the text, not only Pope delineate the current state of the global waste management in the context of the ongoing environmental crisis, but she lays out respective theoretical solutions that are transdisciplinary in nature. Through a melded lens of physics, economics, sociology, anthropology, politics, law and other fields, Pope expands on socio-ecological and socio-economic models to put forth a model aimed at socio-ecological justice.

Pope, a Brazilian environmental lawyer, contextualizes the global waste management issue in terms of the global North-South divide, in the Brazilian legal context, and in a temporal sense, laying out present and future challenges and threats to human and non-human entities sharing the ecosphere and their just representation. The brilliance of the book, for me, was that despite my hurdles understanding the legalese, the technical jargon and higher vocabulary used to discuss the main topic at hand, once I understood the words, the terminology, the logic flowed and empowered. It's a sad state that despite the flowery imagery of an international recycling apparatus, the reality is much worse. And I suppose I knew that, having been exposed to documentary videos on trash burning on beaches in African countries or landfills and accompanying labor exploitation in Latin America. My naivete was in thinking that there was a stronger push, or stronger controls and policies in place, now, to prevent those ongoing horrors. 

Considering my respective laypersonhood, I walk away from my read feeling well-informed and able to recontextualize related global systems, and most importantly, the global waste management system, in its current state and its potential future forms. That accompanying resulting comprehension is a testament to how well the book was written. For those of us (previously) unfamiliar with words of ontology, this might be a challenging read. But it's a well-worth it for what you walk away learning. I can't give this anything but 5 stars.

Global Waste Management (ISBN: 9781789660777) was published April 2020.