Waste of the World

How and where we turn things to waste, and how we deal with the increasing amount and complexity of rubbish that is the product of mass urbanisation and consumption, pose some of the most pressing contemporary global economic, political and environmental dilemmas.

The Waste of the World project comprises six projects, the following three of which are based at Durham:

Project 1 examines how ships are broken-up, in different ways, under different regulatory regimes, and with what implications for the ways in which wastes are treated, generated and disposed of. It achieves this through two case studies of shipbreaking, in Hartlepool (England) and Chittagong (Bangladesh).

Project 2 provides an examination of the international trade in nuclear wastes from the 1950s to the present day, and an analysis of how used nuclear fuel is moved around the world and within one nuclear reprocessing plant.

Project 3 examines the ways in which materials and waste are generated in the processes of steel manufacture in different parts of the world (NE England, India and the US); how production processes have been altered to minimise waste; and strategies to revalorise waste.

Research Team
Principal investigator: Professor Ray Hudson
Wolfson fellows: Professor Ray Hudson
Other Durham University researchers: Professor Ash Amin; Dr Michael A Crang; Dr Karen Bickerstaff
Other organizations: Universities of Sheffield and London
Funder: ESRC
Dates: Overall programme from 2006 to end 2011; Projects 1 and 2 from 2007 to 2009; project 3 from 2007 to 2010
Keywords: Waste generation; waste disposal; waste treatment
Links: Waste of the World website