Transforming urban waste into sustainable material and energy usage: the case of Greater Manchester (UK)

Abstract Networked infrastructures such as waste, energy, water and transport are integral to sustainable urban transformation. They are closely linked to urban growth and underpin the economic, social and environmental performance of modern cities. At the same time places shape the transformation of such complex infrastructural systems. Effective waste management contributes significantly to public health, environmental sustainability and economic development and it is an inherently urban challenge. Combining insights from urban studies with research on ‘systems innovation’ and ‘sustainable transitions’, this paper deals with a transformation towards a more sustainable waste management system in an urban setting. More specifically, the paper describes how Greater Manchester (UK) underwent a transformation from a relatively simple landfill model to a highly complex, multi-technology waste solution based on intensive recycling and composting, and sustainable energy usage. The case is relevant because the UK has long been seen as a laggard when it comes to sustainable waste practices. The 1999 EU landfill directive exerted great pressure to change waste practices in the UK. Against the national trend of incineration with energy recovery, Greater Manchester opted instead for a solution that was deemed more innovative and sustainable, but which involved overcoming significant technological, political and financial challenges. The paper investigates the process that led to this purposive transformation, characterized by a mix of political vision, stakeholder engagement, economies of scale, and the ability of waste disposal managers to gather expertise, resources, political influence and commitment at multiple levels of governance.

[1]  I. Bache,et al.  Multi-level governance , 2004 .

[2]  David Harvey,et al.  Cities or urbanization , 1996 .

[3]  D. Loorbach.  Transition Management: New Mode of Governance for Sustainable Development , 2007 .

[4]  T. P. Hughes,et al.  The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology , 1989 .

[5]  Frank W. Geels,et al.  Strategic niche management and sustainable innovation journeys: theory, findings, research agenda, and policy , 2008, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[6]  Maria Kaika,et al.  Fetishising the Modern City: the Phantasmagoria of Urban Technological Networks , 2000 .

[7]  M. Hodson,et al.  Can cities shape socio-technical transitions and how would we know if they were? , 2010 .

[8]  S. Davoudi,et al.  The Challenge of Governance in Regional Waste Planning , 2005 .

[9]  Patsy Healey,et al.  Transforming governance: Challenges of institutional adaptation and a new politics of space1 , 2006 .

[10]  F. Geels.  The role of the cities in technological transitions: analytical clarifications and historical examples , 2010 .

[11]  G. Stoker.  Governance as theory: five propositions , 1998 .

[12]  Lars Coenen,et al.  Environmental Innovation and Sustainability Transitions in Regional Studies , 2012 .

[13]  B.J.M. van Vliet,et al.  Sustainable Innovation in Network-Bound Systems: Implications for the Consumption of Water, Waste Water and Electricity Services , 2012 .

[14]  Adrian Smith,et al.  Innovation studies and sustainability transitions: The allure of the multi-level perspective and its challenges , 2010 .

[15]  S. Quilley.  Manchester First: From Municipal Socialism to the Entrepreneurial City , 2000 .

[16]  S. Davoudi.  Scalar tensions in the governance of waste: the resilience of state spatial Keynesianism , 2009 .

[17]  Andrew E. G. Jonas,et al.  The environment and the entrepreneurial city: searching for the urban ‘sustainability;fix’ in Manchester and Leeds , 2004 .

[18]  M. Boyle.  Cleaning up after the Celtic Tiger: scalar ‘fixes’ in the political ecology of Tiger economies , 2002 .

[19]  Jochen Monstadt.  Conceptualizing the Political Ecology of Urban Infrastructures: Insights from Technology and Urban Studies , 2009 .

[20]  J. Jacobs,et al.  The Economy of Cities , 1969 .

[21]  Derk Loorbach,et al.  Transition Management: A Reflexive Governance Approach , 2006 .

[22]  Adam D. Read.  Making waste work: making UK national solid waste strategy work at the local scale , 1999 .

[23]  Colin McFarlane,et al.  Political Infrastructures: Governing and Experiencing the Fabric of the City , 2008 .

[24]  D. Harvey.  From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: The Transformation in Urban Governance in Late Capitalism , 1989 .

[25]  Jochen Monstadt,et al.  Urban Governance and the Transition of Energy Systems: Institutional Change and Shifting Energy and Climate Policies in Berlin , 2007 .

[26]  B. Truffer,et al.  Market Formation in Technological Innovation Systems—Diffusion of Photovoltaic Applications in Germany , 2011 .

[27]  F. Geels.  Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study , 2002 .

[28]  O. Coutard.  Placing splintering urbanism: Introduction , 2008 .

[29]  J. Schot,et al.  Regime shifts to sustainability through processes of niche formation : the approach of strategic niche management , 1998 .

[30]  J. Schot,et al.  Breaking out of the national : foundations for a multi-scalar perspective of socio-technical transitions , 2012 .

[31]  H. Bulkeley,et al.  Crossing the Threshold: Municipal Waste Policy and Household Waste Generation , 2009 .

[32]  E. Shove,et al.  Caution! Transitions Ahead: Politics, Practice, and Sustainable Transition Management , 2007 .

[33]  Elvira Uyarra,et al.  A role for public procurement in system innovation: the transformation of the Greater Manchester (UK) waste system , 2013, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[34]  Bob Jessop,et al.  The regulation approach, governance and post-Fordism: alternative perspectives on economic and political change? , 1995 .

[35]  S. Winter,et al.  An evolutionary theory of economic change , 1983 .

[36]  Matthew Gandy.  Recycling and the politics of urban waste , 1993 .

[37]  H. Bulkeley.  Cities and the Governing of Climate Change , 2010 .

[38]  Simon Marvin,et al.  Cities, Regions and Privatised Utilities , 1999 .

[39]  Martin V. Melosi,et al.  The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present , 1999 .

[40]  T. P. Hughes.  Networks of power : electrification in Western society, 1880-1930 , 1984 .

[41]  Jonathan Rutherford,et al.  Political Infrastructures: Governing and Experiencing the Fabric of the City: Political infrastructures , 2008 .

[42]  A. Rip.  A co-evolutionary approach to reflexive governance - and its ironies , 2006 .

[43]  H. Rohracher,et al.  'Energy regions': The transformative power of regional discourses on socio-technical futures , 2010 .