Kooperationsprojekt mit der University of Glasgow.
Projektbeginn: 01.09.2007
Bearbeiter:
Project Description
By the 1990s, waste management constituted big business for the private sector in many countries, but it was not always so. In 1945, it was carried out at the local level and dominated by the public sector. This research project examines two key issues: How and with what consequences did waste collection and disposal become "waste management"? And, why did this process differ from country to country, indeed from locality to locality?
The project compares the emergence of this new industry in the United Kingdom between 1945 and the early 1990s with that in West Germany during the same period. Similar in levels of affluence, manufacturing and technological capabilities, and population size and density, the two nonetheless created very different systems of waste management. A comparative history of these developments permits sustained attention to interconnections through time between business, technology, economy, politics and society.
The study deploys a distinctive business historical perspective to complement and extend existing scholarship in at least four ways: 1) its comparative approach; 2) its exploration of national, regional and local agendas and interactions; 3) its attention to shifts in balance between the public and private sectors; and, 4) its consideration of development over several decades.
