Professional Documents
Culture Documents
environment
policymakers
in
the
as
US
maternal
and
UK
or
are
female,
because
influenced
by
existing
libertarian
the same time, the household is its own city of people protected from the
external legal environment. In placing the obligation on local authorities to
provide waste and recycling collection services, the state governs itself
and, for the most part, allows the household to govern itself. The
boundary between household and the legal environment, or between the
state and the environment, is clearly demarcated. There is reciprocity
between the official definition of the household2 at the centre of the legal
environment and the Hegelian family that opens up into the 'civic
community'3. As an entity that holds together all the people who live in
the same place, then it is a posthuman dialectic. A house in multiple
occupation, where there are at least three tenants from more than one
household who share a kitchen, bathroom or toilet, is really an extended
household or Hegelian family. The household generates itself fractal-like
into a city where the Hegelian wife is being cared for by the Hegelian
husband and the paternal state is looking after the households in its
environment. As the Hegelian family, the relationship between the state
and the household has an impact on the future, that is the environment.
There appears to be a mismatch between the sense of government
urgency to change household behaviour and the actual response of
households. On the one hand, the government wants to change household
2 Department for Communities and Local Government,
http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/housingresearch/housingstatistics/definit
iongeneral/: One person or group of persons who have the accommodation as
their only or main residence and (for a group) either share at least one meal a
day or share the living accommodation, that is, a living room or sitting room.
3Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosophy of Right, (first published 1821, Dover
2005),para 181 - Note
per
person,
in
kilograms,
has
increased
and
decreased
respectively. Between the years 1991/2 and 2008/9, the overall amount of
household waste not recycled per person fell by about 27% from 417kg to
303kg and the amount of household waste recycled rose by about 16%. 6
Furthermore, in a representative survey for Defra, 91% of respondents in
2009 said that they recycled instead of throwing away compared to 70%
in 2007 and 88% said that people have a duty to recycle. 7Of course, it is
problematic looking at per-person weights for a number of reasons: some
people will recycle more than others, waste is collected on a household
not individual basis and a 16% increase in recycling over 20 years does
4Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Partial Regulatory
Impact Assessment: Consultation on Incentives for Recycling by Households,
(May 2007), para 6 [emphasis added]
5 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Household waste and
recycling in the UK' (5 November 2009), See Appendix
6 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Household waste and
recycling in the UK' (5 November 2009), See Appendix
7 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2009 Survey of public
attitudes and behaviours towards the environment', 23 September 2009; The
department has conducted periodic public attitudes surveys since 1986,
available at http://www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/environment/public-attitude/ and
the general trend suggests improvement in attitudes and behaviour with regard
to the environment, but it is difficult to compare different surveys because
different categories and questions are used each time.
8 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Government Review
of Waste Policy in England 2011', August 2011, para 70
9 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Household waste and
recycling in the UK' (5 November 2009), See Appendix
10 Heather Chappells and Elizabeth Shove, in their 1999 paper, Bins and the
history of waste relations provide an account of the history of household waste
bins and collection in the UK. In the 1800s, public health legislation called for
each dwelling to have an ashpit privy; the waste was collected, sold to
businesses and recycled to manufacture certain products. As the nature of the
waste changed materially, its economic value fell, but waste disposal continued.
Public health and environmental laws called for central waste deposits such as
landfills. The paper is available in the Consumption, Everyday Life and
Sustainability Reader, published by Lancaster University,
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/projects/esf/bins.htm
second naturebecausethey
are simultaneously
inherent
and
12 House of Lords, Behaviour Change: Written Evidence from A-C, The Select Committee
on Science and Technology, 24 November 2010, Available from:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/science-andtechnology-committee/inquiries/behaviour/, 225
13 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Household waste
and recycling in the UK' (5 November 2009), See Appendix
recycling collection service) and duties (none). It is clear that itdoes not
reflect reality fully. National law and policy is not meant to address
fictional problems while abstraction does not take in account the
contradiction of the plastic individual. The legal subject is not a fully
recognised concrete individual.14Individual entities are plastic in that they
each have their own capacity to form and resist deformation, that is they
have an impact on each others environment and is a part of the others
environment.15 The plasticity of the dialectic manifests in an individual
dialectic between resistance and change over time16. This can be seen
from a study by the Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP)s into
barriers to household recycling: only 6% of households admitted to not
recycling at all and 30% were classed as super-committed recyclers, but
the majority of households (64%) were classed as non-committed
recyclers or general committed recyclers, i.e. they accepted the universal
ideal or norm of recycling but, for whom, it was not translating fully in
their particular circumstances.17The research from WRAP and Defra
indicate that it is quite possible, indeed probable, that, regardless of what
14Douzinas, Costas (2000). The end of human rights: Critical Legal Thought at
the Turn of the Century, 267
15 Malabou, 2005
16Pravin Jeyaraj, Plasticity, Recycling and Procrastination: The Dialectic between
Resistance and Change, Westminster Law Review,
http://www.westminsterlawreview.org/wlr1.php
17Pocock, Robert; Stone, Ian; Clive, Helen; Smith, Rebecca; Jesson, Jill; Wilczak, Stefan,
Barriers to recycling at home, (Waste Resources Action Programme, Banbury,
Oxfordshire, 2008), p4,
http://www.wrap.org.uk/downloads/Barriers_to_Recycling_Summary_Report1.9dea9c06.57
34.pdf
the average person does, a plastic individual would believe that recycling
is the right thing to do and yet not recycle to an extent. In other words, it
both wants to go forward and recycle and stay where it is. When Hegel
describes plastic individuals as exemplary, he says they are 'great and
free, grown independently on the soil of their own inherently substantial
personality, self-made and developing into what they (essentially) were
and wanted to be'18.On the one hand, the plastic individual is the ultimate
goal of what has gone before and thus at its peak; on the other, it still has
some way to go and is the origin for what is still to come. In other words,
the plastic individual is at a point of le voir venir, where one can see what
is coming. To be plastic, therefore, involves a capacity to resist the future
and a capacity to submit to the future. There are two opposites of
plasticity, both which involve forgetting our plasticity. Forgetting our
capacity to submit makes us stubborn or stagnant as if we are elastic.
Forgetting our capacity to resist makes us flexible, easily bent, docile,
submissive.19 Both instances lead to a form of death through a loss of
vitality20 or a diminution of neuronal connections21. Elasticity is imposed
by one body, flexibility by another.
Forgetting
18Malabou, 2005, 10
19Malabou, What Should We Do With The Brain?, (Sebastian Rand (tr), Fordham
University Press, 2008), 12
20Malabou, 2005, 24; Malabou, 2008,
21Malabou, What Should We Do With The Brain?, (Sebastian Rand (tr), Fordham
University Press, 2008), 48
consequence
of
self-consciousness.To
recycle
means
to
society cannot afford the much of what is produced whilst those who can
afford cannot cope with the volumes; the waste and recycling system is
thus meant to create space for the household to buy more. 30 However,
research for the Local Government Association indicates that social
demographics have an impact on the amount of waste produced, 31
particularly the size of the household but not necessarily income 32. I would
argue therefore that the wealth or abundance to which Baudrillard and
Marx refer is the wealth of the relationship, the sense of trust. In putting
its trust in the local authority or the state, the household forgets as soon
as it consumes, spits out before it chews, throws its object into the past
before they are even aired in the present...not production for the sake of
The aim of
50Halton Borough Council, Halton residents rewarded for recycling in borough wide rollout, (Halton Borough Council, Widnes, 2010),
http://www2.halton.gov.uk/content/newsroom/latestnews/1674866?a=5441[emphasis
added]
for yourself or our schools in the area by putting out recycling, which we
are being asked to do anyway, its a win-win situation.53 In a news item
about the Greater London Authoritys plans to encourage incentivised
recycling in London, one unnamed local resident said that it would be
nice, even if it's just to get a pint of milk freeit's something to let you
know that we are doing it. I suppose that we all like to be praised for what
we do.54Of course, the above comments represent the views of a handful
of households but it would appear that the main effect of this particular
reward scheme is to offer a slap on the back for recognition.Indeed, one
feature of the Recyclebank scheme is that points can be exchanged for
money-off vouchers that have Thank You for Recycling emblazoned
across them. On the one hand, the recognition is consideration for work
done provided by a third party, like a prostitute; on the other hand, the
illicit relationship is sanctioned by the husband and thus enables mutual
recognition.
Arguably, the offer of incentives has had the desired effect of increasing
recycling. According to Windsor and Maidenheads own data, there was an
average increase of 35% in the weight of recyclable material collected
over the course of the schemes pilot period from June 2009 to 2010. The
scheme was then rolled-out in full across the borough, with a recycling
rate of 39% and a 71% opt-in rate.55In Halton, 60% of households in the
54 ibid
between
the
household
and
the
state
comprises
two
simultaneous moments mutual recognition and master/slave dialectic that form and resist each other.
The state, at both local and central government level, has also pointed out
the importance of mutual recognition. Councillor Rob Polhill, the leader of
Halton council, has said that the councils approach is to reward our
residents for their recycling efforts.59 Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State
for Communities and Local Government said: The best way to encourage
people to recycle is not to punish families, but to encourage and reward
them for going green. Similarly, Caroline Spelman, the Secretary of State
for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Windsor and Maidenhead
Council have got it right by rewarding people for voluntarily doing the
right thing not penalising them for doing the wrong thing. 60 What is
interesting however is that both government ministers has placed
recognition by rewards as a better alternative than punishing a failure to
recycle, presumably because the latter denies full recognition by not
treating like adults61, yet they still emphasise the importance of the
amount of waste recycled. Again, it is clear that the plasticity of the
dialectic comprises mutual recognition and master/slave simultaneously.
The tension between the two moments of the relationship suggests that
sometimes the master/slave dialectic will be dominant. For example, just
59Halton Borough Council, Recycling rewards scheme extended to all Halton
residents, (Halton Borough Council, 2011),
http://www3.halton.gov.uk/news/newsroom/126462/
60 Department for Communities and Local Government, Its time for recycling
rewards, not bin taxes, (7 June 2010),
http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1608334
61 Eric Pickles, Well boost recycling with a gentle nudge, (The Guardian, 8 June
2010), http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/jun/08/recyclingreward-scheme
62 Benjamin, 1988, ??
63 Councils hail magic" of compulsory recycling, (Letsrecycle.com, 26 February
2008), http://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/councils/councils-hail-magicof-compulsory-recycling