Discards & Diverse Economies: Reuse in Rural Maine

This dissertation presents an ethnographic exploration of diverse reuse economies in rural Maine in an effort to illuminate both how used goods move between people and organizations, as well as the value of that movement for people and communities. In response to a growing number of calls for research into the social dimensions of circular economies, this research explores the varied and uneven impacts of materials reuse as they are experienced by local participants. This work uses a qualitative approach, drawing on two main methods: participant observation in reuse establishments and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with reuse participants. This rich qualitative data provides a detailed picture of reuse activities at a local scale, and helps us understand the complex relationships formed and perpetuated through reuse. This research presents three important contributions to the literature on reuse and circular economies. First, there are strong associations between reuse practices (buying, selling, lending, and gifting used goods) and social capital. This suggests that reuse practices might contribute to the social fabric of communities, building trust, relationships, cooperation, and support. Yet my research also highlights the negative consequences of social capital, such as when people are excluded from networks, resources, and opportunities along racialized and classed divisions. My research emphasizes that both reuse and social capital must be understood as complex practices that have the potential to exclude as well as include. Policymakers and community members eager to contribute to localized wellbeing must understand and plan for these complex effects as they create supports for localized reuse. Secondly, this research illustrates key differences between localized reuse economies and globalized platforms for exchange. The social value offered by reuse economies is absent in online, frictionless exchanges that allow for goods to move quickly between buyers and sellers. I find that the friction – the slowness, awkwardness, and time-intensiveness – of localized reuse is what offers potential social benefits. Growing globalized reuse exchanges forecloses important opportunities to foster these important social networks. Finally, my work examines the labor that powers localized reuse economies. I find that the unwaged, voluntary labor of elderly volunteers is often unseen and unvalued. Indeed, volunteers are performing emotional and affective labor as they manage the surplus of their communities. This research suggests that policies designed to address material surplus do so with these laborers in mind. Taken together this dissertation envisions localized reuse economies as diverse economies defined by complexity and social relationships. These findings offer policymakers and local decision-makers solutions for promoting just and equitable localized circular economies

Mitchell Center_Reopening Reuse_COVID-19 Safety for Community Reuse in Maine

A guide from the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions at the University of Maine to help community reuse organizations make decisions about how — and whether — to open during the COVID-19 pandemic

Linking Rural and Urban Circular Economies Through Reuse and Repair

Increasing resource scarcity and what has been called “the end of cheap nature” are prompting policymakers and scholars to foster more circular economies to reduce waste and lengthen the lifespan of material goods. Our essay critically examines the political and economic relationships between urban and rural geographies in the context of secondhand economies. Practices of bartering, swapping, selling, and repairing used goods have long been important to rural people and places, but the increasing commodification of discards risks upending rural livelihoods and ways of being as goods move toward urban centers. We explore the relationship between rural and urban reuse economies and suggest how future scholars of rural North America might contribute to strengthening and supporting localized reuse practices

Sharing Isn’t Easy: Food Waste and Food Redistribution in Maine K–12 Schools

Approximately 30 percent of food in the United States is wasted. When food is landfilled instead of eaten, the economic and natural resources used to produce and transport that food are also wasted. At the same time, however, food insecurity remains a pressing issue both in the United States and within the state of Maine. This paper explores efforts to reduce food waste and address food insecurity in Maine’s K–12 school system, with an emphasis on food redistribution. Research indicates that schools produce substantial amounts of food waste, but little is known about strategies that schools employ to address food waste, either through formal policy or grassroots efforts. Based on an analysis of school board waste policies and interviews with school officials in Maine, this study suggests that the adoption of specific types of practices to reduce food waste is influenced by multiple factors

Rummaging through the Attic of New England

The concept of the circular economy has taken off, gaining momentum along with concerns about resource depletion, waste, and the impending ‘end of cheap nature’ (Moore 2014). Environmentalists and industrialists alike have promoted the benefits of reuse as a means toward improved efficiency and reduced resource pressure. Some have called for a new ‘culture of reuse’ (Botsman and Rogers 2010; Stokes et al. 2014). It is in this context that we explore repair, resale, and reuse as practices with deep historical precedent and contemporary continuity. Are there lessons to be learned from places that are already home to circular economies and strong cultures of reuse? And are there dangers inherent in a stronger, more formalized reuse sector? This paper draws on an historical and ethnographic analysis of vibrant reuse practices in the rural northeastern state of Maine. While there is a popular tendency to explain Maine’s persistent reuse practices as a response to economic and geographic marginality, our empirical observations suggest that these explanations do not adequately capture the complexity of reuse markets, discount the power of human agency and sense of place, and preclude important lessons for reuse policy in other contexts. Insights from Maine suggest that any effort to promote reuse would benefit from looking beyond purely economic rationales to attend to matters of place, sociality, and market relationality

Maine’s Culture of Reuse and Its Potential to Advance Environmental and Economic Policy Objectives

Policies designed to extend the lifetime of products—by encouraging reuse rather than disposal—are proliferating. Research suggests that reuse can ease pressure on natural resources and improve economic efficiency, all while preventing waste. In Maine, there are clear signs of a tradition of reuse that might be used to advance these goals. But beyond discrete observations, proverbs, and anecdotal stories, little data have been collected upon which to estimate the potential of Maine’s reuse economy. This paper draws upon findings generated during the first year of a five-year interdisciplinary, mixed-methods research project designed to explore the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of reuse in Maine. Our preliminary findings suggest that Maine does, indeed, have a vibrant but underestimated reuse economy. Less expected are findings that suggest reuse has promise to enhance economic resilience and contribute to culturally appropriate economic development

Circular economy disclaimers: Rethinking property relations at the end of cheap nature

Converging environmental crises have inspired a movement to shift dominant economic forms away from linear “take-make-waste” models and toward more circular forms that reimagine discarded materials as valuable resources. With the coming “end of cheap nature”, this invitation to reimagine waste as something more than “the political other of capitalist value” is seen as both an environmental necessity and an opportunity for green growth. Less often discussed is that the circular economy, in its reconfiguration of value, also has the potential to reshape contemporary property relations and dismantle existing forms of circularity. In this paper, we explore potential shifts in property relations through an analysis of three strategies often imagined as key to facilitating the transition to circularity—extended producer responsibility, repair, and online resale. Each case synthesizes existing research, public discourse, and findings from a series of focus groups and interviews with circular economy professionals. While this research is preliminary and demands additional research, all three cases suggest caution given the possibility that some circular economy strategies can concentrate value and control of existing materials stocks, dispossess those most vulnerable, and alienate participants in existing reuse, recycling, and repair markets. Drawing on and adapting Luxemburg's concept of primitive accumulation, Tsing's ideas about salvage accumulation, Moore's work on commodity frontiers and recent research which encourages more attention to processes of commoning—we argue that without careful attention to relations of power and justice in conceptualizations of ownership and the collective actions necessary to transform our economic forms in common, transitions toward the circular economy have the potential to enclose the value of discards and exacerbate inequality

Toxicants, entanglement, and mitigation in New England’s emerging circular economy for food waste

Drawing on research with food waste recycling facilities in New England, this paper explores a fundamental tension between the eco-modernist logics of the circular economy and the reality of contemporary waste streams. Composting and digestion are promoted as key solutions to food waste, due to their ability to return nutrients to agricultural soils. However, our work suggests that food waste processors increasingly find themselves responsible for policing boundaries between distinct “material” and “biological” systems as imagined by the architects of the circular economy—boundaries penetrable by toxicants. This responsibility creates significant problems for processors due to the regulatory, educational, and structural barriers documented in this research. This paper contributes to scholarship which suggests the need to rethink the modernist logics of the circular economy and to recognize the realities of entangled material and biological systems. More specifically, we argue that if circularity is the goal, policy needs to recognize the barriers food waste processors face and concentrate circularity efforts further upstream to ensure fair, just, and safe circular food systems

Circular Food Systems in Maine: Findings from an Interdisciplinary Study of Food Waste Management

This paper explores challenges and opportunities for reducing food waste in Maine through five distinct, yet interrelated, case studies. Our research focuses on how Maine might create and support a more circular food system that can reduce waste and promote the use of surplus food in agricultural and industrial processes. This stakeholder-engaged research identifies potential policy interventions across scales, but also highlights the need for more interdisciplinary research opportunities for students. Our research adopts an interdisciplinary approach, and our team members represent diverse academic backgrounds, including nursing, the human dimensions of climate change, environmental engineering, ecology and environmental sciences, biomedical engineering, and anthropology. This interdisciplinary team acts as a model for future groups interested in finding long-term answers to problems that require complex understanding and analysis

The Disposal Mode of Maine’s Waste Governance

Maine’s materials management system is stuck in a disposal mode of waste governance. Despite significant investments in programs and policies designed to reduce the amount of waste the state buries each year, recent shocks and uncertainties have resulted in increased waste generation and disposal. This paper analyzes specific ways through which materials management in Maine has become locked in to a disposal mode of waste governance. We build a framework to help understand various forms of lock-in and how they might be unlocked. This framework is applied to the extended producer responsibility packaging law that is presently under the rule-making process in Maine, the first state to adopt such a policy in the United States