Introduction

In this chapter, we demonstrate that waste management companies participate in a decisive manner in the design of the sociomateriality of waste, and that this participation gives them a particularly important role for urban development. The sociomateriality of waste refers to the way organisations and individuals engage with the materiality of waste in the course of their daily operations and everyday life (Gregson, 2009). Sociomateriality is not fixed. Instead, the sociomateriality of waste is contingent on the social understanding that people have of the nature, origins and destiny of waste as material. It encompasses different dimensions as to how waste is accepted as construction material for new houses (Bahamón and Sanjinés, 2010), how it function in art works (Vergine, 2007), or how people conceive of their responsibility towards waste (Åkesson and Ohlsson, 2006).

Waste management companies shape the sociomateriality of waste through their communicative and managerial practice. Their logistic choices determine the minutes, rhythms and paths of waste mobilities. They form a critical infrastructure that offers a service that not only brings a practical solution to the problems experienced by waste producers who wish to get rid of their waste, but waste management companies also connect the commodity and post-commodity phases of products, and bridge design, production, distribution and consumption stages to the reuse, recycling or landfill stages of materials (Leonard, 2010). In this, they make possible a functional urban life in materialist and pro-growth economies, not least by embedding their practices of waste management in societal discourses of material scarcity and global environmental responsibility.

This chapter has four main sections. First, we describe three successive Swedish post-Second World War waste governance regimes. Second, we explain how each of these regimes entails a specific sociomateriality of waste. Third, through a case study, we illustrate how waste management companies shape this sociomateriality. And fourth, we discuss the activities of waste management companies in terms of providing critical urban infrastructure services. We conclude by establishing the centrality of waste management companies for the definition of the sociomateriality of waste.

Sweden's efforts to climb the waste hierarchy

Understanding waste governance is necessary to understand the sociomateriality of waste. Sweden has developed three successive waste governance regimes (Gille, 2007) since the Second World War. In the post-war period a ‘landfilling’ regime to accommodate the growing production of waste dominated.