What goes around, comes around? Access and allocation problems in Global North-South waste trade

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Infamous cases of toxic waste trade and research on its health and environmental implications have made the global waste trade a prominent environmental and social justice issue. Recently, such trade has shifted towards extracting resources from waste as recyclable components and used goods which could create income-generating opportunities and reduce the environmental burdens of waste trade from Global North to Global South countries. Nevertheless, studies highlight persistent problems in the access to these resources and allocation of responsibilities, risks and burdens from processing and disposal of traded waste in Global South countries. This article aims to contribute to the lessons learnt on access and allocation with respect to waste trade by focusing on issues of equity, fairness and distributive justice. Two cases are analysed: trade in discarded electronic and electric equipment (EEE) between the EU and Africa and trade in plastic materials between the UK and China. This study shows that exports of used EEE and recyclable plastic materials exacerbate the environmental burdens of Global South countries while also exporting new environmental risks and social burdens. At the same time, new demands for justice have emerged from Global South countries through waste ship back initiatives, and new international measures have also been adopted. While the access and allocation lens enabled the identification of persistent problems in Global North-South waste trade, directing future Earth System Governance research to the demands emerging from the Global South countries could offer insights into how to better address these problems and deal with growing global inequalities.
Original languageEnglish
JournalInternational Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics
Volume20
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)255-269
Number of pages15
ISSN1567-9764
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.06.2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors would also like to gratefully acknowledge the partial support of CAPES for part of this work through subcontract PVE11/14 under their "Pesquisa Visitante Estrangeiro" program, and to Ciência sem Fronteiras that supports the student and postdocs involved with our Brasil dust/soiling reliability project. The feedback and additions provided by many members of PVQAT have been extremely beneficial in building this database of publications. Finally, we acknowledge the help and assistance of the Solar Energy Institute for India and the United States (SERIIUS), which maintains a strong leading research and development program in soiling and dust research and mitigation. This group is funded jointly by the United Stated Department of Energy and the India Office of Science and Technology in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).

Documents

DOI

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Towards a Comprehensive Framework for Environmental Management Accounting
  2. The conservation against development paradigm in protected areas
  3. Demarcating transdisciplinary research in sustainability science—Five clusters of research modes based on evidence from 59 research projects
  4. Hidden Value
  5. Towards the design of organosilicon compounds for environmental degradation by using structure biodegradability relationships
  6. Empirische Erfassung eines „messy constructs“
  7. Long-run economic determinants of asylum applications
  8. Back to the future
  9. Agency, values, and well-being
  10. Culture as an Engine of Local Development Processes
  11. Portal als Experimentalsystem
  12. Exploring fruitful links between real-world laboratory and disciplinary research Introduction of the DKN Future Earth working group LinkLab
  13. Microstructure and properties of magnesium alloy Mg-1Zn-1Ca (Zx11)
  14. Microstructure and hardness evolution of laser metal deposited AA5087 wall-structures
  15. Hoffnung Alter
  16. Tracing Concepts
  17. The end of welfare as we know it?
  18. Indigenous and local values of nature through a gender lens: A literature review
  19. Maximal strength measurement
  20. Nordic game subcultures
  21. Kulturelle Funktionen der Science Fiction
  22. Constructing Identities and Narrating the Self: Sherman Alexie’s Flight as a Fictional Memoir
  23. Chasing the difference
  24. GOMBRICH,ERNST,HANS, BETWEEN PATHOS AND ORNAMENT
  25. Public Value
  26. Demand Chain Management
  27. Citizen Science-Based Monitoring of Cavity-Nesting Wild Bees and Wasps – Benefits for Volunteers, Insects, and Ecological Science
  28. Investigation on Flexible Coils Geometries for Inductive Power Transmission Systems
  29. Variable annuities and the option to seek risk
  30. Consumer Online Search Behavior
  31. Navigating cognition biases in the search of sustainability
  32. Impact Assessment of Emissions Stabilization Scenarios with and without Induced Technological Change
  33. Drawing blanks and winning
  34. Re-storying the Business, Innovation and Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Concepts
  35. Unterschiedliche Welten
  36. The joint effects of supervisor knowledge hiding, abusive supervision, and employee political skill on employee knowledge hiding behaviors
  37. Wer wird subventioniert?
  38. Die Venus: Morgen- oder Abendstern?
  39. Preparation and properties of high purity Mg-Y biomaterials
  40. Planar Multipol-Resonance-Probe: A Spectral Kinetic Approach
  41. Vom Wert des Wertbegriffs
  42. With or Without U?