The power of ignoring waste - a systematic charachterisation of what has been left unregulated

Abstract: Waste is an inescapable product of economic activity. As we now face a world economy, the waste problem is also increasingly an international one and needs to be handled as such. This thesis investigates what type of economic processes that have received attention from the international community for their role in waste creation, but focuses primarily what type of processes that have been ignored. Consumption, exports of goods and processes involving non-hazardous waste are found to have been systematically ignored. The main theme in the analysis is the imbalanced regulation created by ignoring certain waste problems whilst pushing for economic growth and liberalisation. The analysis also raises concerns about the exposed situation of developing countries. The major novelty in the thesis is the combination of two previously separated fields of social theory; industrial ecology and neo-gramscian analysis of power.