Greening from the Margins: the Geopolitics of Extractive, Operational, and Post-Consumer E-waste management

Research Question

1. Who/what is wasted in the process of “greening” the internet?
2. Greening for whom and at whose expense? Who benefits? To what impacts?
3. How can we conceptualize waste in a way that takes into account its many formations and stages throughout the (nonlinear) supply chain?
4. What kinds of assumptions are implicit in claims of greening the internet? How are these assumptions operationalized in policy? How can we complicate such assumptions in order to begin greening the internet in ways that take into account a broader – often marginalized – set of actors, locations, and interests?

Media and Publications

• E-Waste Awareness and Practices of Zimbabwean University Students: A Descriptive Study Study aimed to assess university students’ e-waste awareness and practices
• Perceptions and practices on e-waste management in selected institutions of Zimbabwe This paper aimed to determine the implications of the practices of selected institutions on e-waste management.
• The Conundrum: Transforming African E-Waste Landfills to Urban Mines Highlights the contentious definition of e-waste, its movement from the Global North, and its epidemiological and environmental impact
• Rethinking Sustainability: A Bibliometric and Visualisation of E-Waste Management in Africa The study contributes to literature nd challenges policymakers o craft policies that support sustainable management of e-waste.
• Geographies of Digital Wasting: Electronic Waste From Mine to Discard and Back Again Illuminates the vast networks of digital wastes that stretch across varied geographies of extraction, manufacturing, operation, and discard.