An urban political ecology of municipal organic waste governance in Montreal
That the management of municipal waste is a terrain of political contestation is not new. How waste politics unfold – and how waste is governed, more broadly – within the context of municipal climate policy and the development of a circular economy, however, needs further examination. Previous research has attributed Montréal’s persistent failures to reduce and recycle its organic waste to consumer preferences, to the complexity of coordinating the metropolitan region's 100+ municipalities, or to community opposition to facilities siting, but a more nuanced approach considering multiple factors is needed to understand why organic waste management remains such a trenchant problem.
Engaging with critical debates in geography on waste, green development and the circular economy, and urban governance, this SSHRC Insight Development project (2021 - 2023) is guided by two broad theoretical goals: 1) to understand the ways in which ‘formal’ municipal waste management policies, plans, and the ‘everyday’ practices and conceptions of Montrealers shape each other; and 2) to illuminate how conceptions and definitions of ‘waste’, as well as its physical properties, shape how it is ‘governed’.
Team
Nathan McClintock (Professor, INRS), Gina Morris (Master's student, Urban Studies, INRS) and Logan Penvern (PhD candidate, UQAM).
Funding
