https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6870-6937
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ABSTRACT
The Circular Economy (CE) narrative is spreading at a global scale, addressing different actors and settings, and thus facing new theoretical and empirical challenges. However, CE initiatives in the Global South have tended to extrapolate developed countries’ perspectives, as if the CE provides a global and universal benchmark to converge to. Drawing from a political ecology of waste in Latin America and building on empirical data derived from two case studies of recycling initiatives in Argentina, we focus on how the issue of formalisation of previously informal recyclers could be framed within the CE. Then, we outline two contrasting models, the privatisation of informality on the one hand and the formalisation of commoning on the other. Thus we highlight the extent to which the CE narrative could be used to overlook power relations dynamics, or, to what extent it could be reframed to foster a CE “from below” that could provide a clear path to achieve greater levels of equity and social justice.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This research programme is based in the Open Laboratory of Innovation and Circular Economy – University of Quilmes: www.lab-iec.org
2 PICT 03372 “Innovation and Circular Economy for Inclusive and Sustainable Development: organizational technologies for integrated waste management in cooperatives, private companies and municipalities” granted by the National Agency of Science and Technology Promotion.
4 Waste pickers in Ushuaia represent less than 0.1% of its total population (100 from approximately 60,000 inhabitants). According to unofficial records the population dedicated to grassroots recycling in the whole country reaches up to 250,000 people (FACCyR Citation2018).