The Business of Waste: Great Britain and Germany, 1945 to the Present

ISBN-13: 9781107027213 / Angielski / Twarda / 2013 / 343 str.

Raymond Stokes; Roman Koester; Stephen Sambrook

Opis

The advent of consumer societies in the United Kingdom and West Germany after 1945 led to the mass production of garbage. This book compares the social, cultural, and economic fallout of the growing volume and changing composition of waste in the two countries from 1945 to the present through sustained attention to changes in the business of handling household waste. Though the UK and Germany are similar in population density, degrees of urbanization, and standardization, the two countries took profoundly different paths from low-waste to throwaway societies, and more recently, toward the goal of zero-waste. The authors explore evolving balances between public and private provision in waste services; the transformation of public cleansing into waste management; the role of government legislation and regulation; emerging conceptualizations of recycling and resource recovery; and the gradual shift of the industry's regulatory and business context from local to national and then to international."

Recenzje

'[The authors] not only add a much-needed business historical perspective to a debate that is picking up speed in European history. They also deliver a valuable and exciting study that spans two countries and their histories of handling the problem of waste from the end of the Second World War until today.' Sebastian Teupe, H-Soz-u-Kult

Spis treści

Introduction; Part I. Cleansing Services, 1945 to the 1960s: From Societies of Want to Societies of Purity: 1. Establishing (and re-establishing) an industry: waste services in the UK and Germany from the late nineteenth century to the 1950s; 2. Rationalization measures; 3. 'Salvage' and the industry; Part II. Grappling with Crisis: From the 1960s to 1980: 4. The waste flood; 5. Politicizing waste: national and regional legislation and political activism; 6. Coping with the crisis; Part III. Re-conceptualizing Waste and Conceptualizing Waste Management, 1980 to the Present: 7. Framing waste: measurement, regulation, and legislation in the 1980s; 8. The waste management industry since 1990.