An anthropology of waste

ABSTRACT This article discusses plastic and other solid household waste in both rural and urban Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta (Special Region of Yogyakarta) and integrates several practical and theoretical perspectives in its analysis. An exploration of the everyday littering practices of the Javanese people is combined with analysis of their particular ways of relating to the environment. This study reveals that an abstract notion of nature is not seen as crucial by most actors. Rather, what counts for individuals is their immediate social environment. Government officials are increasing efforts to raise awareness of the issues at hand, and to encourage citizens to sort household waste and to recycle. However, bottom-up initiatives such as community-based ‘waste banks’, communal clean-ups and ‘recycle fashion’ street carnivals that address various social, economic, and emotional aspects of waste have proven much more efficient. Thus, a tentative path to transform the waste problem that, in the authors’ perspective, challenges the notions of growth, modernisation, and human-nonhuman relations is seen in Java in the mobilisation of the local, social and moral world. However, it is not certain that this will generate a less consumptive lifestyle leading to the much needed reduction of waste.