Speakers
Ralph Horne, College of Design and Social Context at RMIT University
Abstract
Ralph Horne with co-author, Bhavna Middha
Apartments are of particular interest in zero waste debates. They are associated with lower recycling rates than other housing typologies. Plastic bag levy policies have been found to have a significant effect among owner-occupiers of high-rise apartments with higher socio-economic status, but a minimal effect among lower socio-economic households and renters. This points to the unequal effects of waste reduction measures across housing types, class, and tenure types.
Paying heed to rhythms of urban waste can provide insights into how the waste burden can be more justly distributed. In Australia, as in other owner-occupier, suburban based societies, housing is an essential locus for the domestic waste regime, and apartments are anomalies that disrupt it. Rather than assuming that the aforementioned lower recycling rates are a product of household behaviour, we present empirical research that reveals dynamics at play that make apartments incompatible with normalised waste regimes. Spatio-temporal knowledge of waste and apartment living is embodied and experienced, doing places and doing times form the rhythms of waste. Understanding and addressing these is thus a key to addressing uneven urban waste practices.
Biography
Ralph Horne is Associate Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research and Innovation for the College of Design and Social Context at RMIT University. He is Professor of Geography and his research focuses on social and policy change to support sustainable urban development, housing and households. He currently leads a range of research projects in Australia and Europe, on sustainable, equitable, and circular economy housing and households, post-carbon medium density housing, and sustainable production and consumption in urban environments. Among the latter is a current project examining the challenges facing households and built environment industries in recycling, waste reduction, and preparation and participation in circular economy systems. He combines research leadership and participation in research projects concerning the environmental, social and policy context of cities. The spatial, material and contingent social and policy structures at play are the main focus of his work on both the making and shaping of future urban environments.
