Thinking like Apple's recycling robots:towards the activation of responsibility in a postenvironmentalist world

This article turns to valuation studies to enrich the critical capacities of postenvironmentalism with a more situated approach. Debates in postenvironmentalism suggest moving away from a romanticized notion of nature and instead shining the spotlight on the responsibility humans have toward the built environment, which includes technologies. We use Liam and Daisy, two recycling robots of Apple Inc., as intermediaries to discuss the multiplicities of value-production in the recycling economies of electronic waste. The company introduced these robots as innovations to revolutionize the recycling industries; yet, drawing on our ethnographic research in the UK, Germany, India and Ghana we emphasize that Apple’s approach to research is limited. The notion of dis/assembling value enables us to activate the production of responsibility as a value in empirical contexts, with a focus on (1) decisions on material breakdown that are hidden in the black box of Apple’s algorithms, (2) the vulnerability and fragility of electronic waste work, and (3) the rising impact of shredding technologies in the global recycling economies of e-waste

Extractivism, Value and Waste:Organizational Mining of e-Waste in the United Kingdom

In this paper we critically evaluate the mining and extraction of e-waste – electronic waste – and the relationship with the emerging cleaner and greener economy. Drawing on ethnographic data, gathered from an e-waste management organization – e-WasteOrg, we show how e-waste and value are assembled, extracted and circulated within local, national and global contexts. To date little attention has been paid to interdependent systems of waste and value. We argue that e-WasteOrg operates polyphonically in order to secure, routinize and circulate the ongoing disposal of e-waste. Extracting waste becomes associated with a range of differentiated value systems, as sourcing and valuing waste is a continual concern for those in the waste management sector. As more waste is sought, we conclude that a cleaner and greener economy is both constricting in terms of new market entrants and expanding as waste management actors mine for materials across value systems. Keywords: e-waste, extractivism, mining, value, waste, green economy, circular econom

E-Waste Trading Zones and the Economy of Greening:Imbricating Computer Sourcing in the Pre- and Post-WEEE Directive Era

In the context of the environmental impacts caused due to the increasing volumes of discarded technologies (e-Waste), this article critically evaluates whether environmental policy, the Waste of Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) legislation in particular, can contribute to a shift in logic from neo-liberal growth to green growth. Drawing upon empirical research we show how three computer waste organisations evolve through the imbrication of pre- and post- policy logics in collaborative and heterogeneous ways to create an economy of greening. Extending the concept of a fractionated trading zone, we demonstrate the heterogeneous ways in which computer sourcing is imbricated, providing a taxonomy of imbricating logics. We argue that what is shared in a fractionated trading zone is a diversity of imbrications. This provides for a nuanced perspective on policy and the management of waste, showing how post-WEEE logics become the condition to continue to pursue pre-WEEE logics. Our research focuses on three organisations and the EU 2003 and UK 2006 versions of the WEEE legislation. We conclude that our research findings have important implications, more specifically, for how e-waste policy is enacted as an economy of greening in order to constitute the managerial and organisational adaptation needed to create a sustainable economy and society. Our paper's contribution is threefold. First, theoretically, we extend the literature on trading zones and imbrication by considering how they can complement one another. Our focus on imbrication is a ‘zooming in’ on the managerial and organisational implications and dynamics of a trading zone. Second, we add to the literature on imbrication by identifying a diverse range of imbricating logics that can be used to discern a more nuanced understanding of the translated effects of policy. Last, we ground these ideas in a relevant empirical context – that of e-waste management in the UK, providing a deeper knowledge, over time, of specific actors’ translations of policy into organisational practices

Melanins As Sustainable Resources For Advanced Biotechnological Applications

Melanins are a class of biopolymers that are widespread in nature and have diverse origins, chemical compositions and functions in nature. Their chemical, electrical, optical and paramagnetic properties offering opportunities for application in materials science for a range of medical and technical applications. This review focuses on the application of analytical techniques to study melanins in multidisciplinary contexts with a view to their use as sustainable resources for advanced biotechnological applications, and how these may facilitate our achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs)

WOT 1_2 Insights into the flows and fates of e-waste in the UK

In 2019 the EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive documented a sizable increase in e-waste collection targets alongside widening the scope of electrical and electronic products covered by the legislation. These changes have significant impact for the UK, where e-waste collection has been below the levels necessary to meet the targets. Understanding the flows and fates of products on and off the market becomes of paramount importance, especially for producer-led organisations who have the responsibility to achieve the targets and cover the operational costs. Historic e-waste estimation methods often assume that one product on the market will equate to one product in the waste stream. In this article, we introduce our research commissioned by one of the largest UK producer-led organisations, REPIC Ltd, to explain the gap in products on the market and WEEE collected, and the relationship between the two. We argue that we should move away from the “one-in-one-out” estimation to include a wider set of parameters that are tailored specifically for the UK, including those linked with the state of the market for electronic and electrical products and a broader range of socioeconomic indicators. We show how this can be achieved by adapting a state-of-the-art e-waste estimation model, Waste Over Time, to the UK context and developing it further to include additional drivers

The Little Book of Plastics in Everyday Life

What this Little Book tells you The purpose of this Little Book is to provide a holistic but condensed overview of the key aspects of plastics as they are produced, consumed and disposed of in contemporary consumer culture. We centre attention not just on the materiality of plastics but also on their meanings and how they come to be experienced and lived with in daily life

The Role of Galectin-1 and Galectin-3 in the Mucosal Immune Response to Citrobacter rodentium Infection

Despite their abundance at gastrointestinal sites, little is known about the role of galectins in gut immune responses. We have therefore investigated the Citrobacter rodentium model of colonic infection and inflammation in Galectin-1 or Galectin-3 null mice. Gal-3 null mice showed a slight delay in colonisation after inoculation with C. rodentium and a slight delay in resolution of infection, associated with delayed T cell, macrophage and dendritic cell infiltration into the gut mucosa. However, Gal-1 null mice also demonstrated reduced T cell and macrophage responses to infection. Despite the reduced T cell and macrophage response in Gal-1 null mice, there was no effect on C. rodentium infection kinetics and pathology. Overall, Gal-1 and Gal-3 play only a minor role in immunity to a gut bacterial pathogen