Garbage is gold: Waste-based commodity frontiers, modes of valorization and ecological distribution conflicts

Waste is increasingly viewed as a resource rather than an externality. However, new waste management regimes must be introduced in order for value to be created, enhanced and captured. We refer to these regimes as modes of valorization, and they establish the conditions that allow waste to become a commodity frontier. The production of waste-based commodity frontiers is often accompanied by dispossession, and this explains why conflicts surrounding the ownership over and control of waste have proliferated worldwide. This article introduces a special section that includes papers focused on the establishment of new modes of valorization and concomitant impacts in India, South Africa, Turkey and the U.S.