This book deals with municipal solid waste (MSW) management in the megacities of mainland China and focuses on Beijing. It addresses prominent issues and provides a detailed and coherent account as well as an overview of the relevant literature. The author, Stefan Landsberger, adopts a descriptive approach, relying extensively on existing knowledge, which he organizes, summarizes and contextualizes effectively, thanks largely to his expertise on China. He also develops a handful of new case studies, the most interesting of which concerns online-to-offline (O2O) ventures for the collection of recyclables.
The book consists of an introduction and eight chapters. The first chapter reviews the history of consumption, waste and recycling in Beijing. A special mention should be made of the illustrations (reproductions of propaganda posters dating from Maoist times) that Landsberger presents in a concise and expert way. The second chapter focuses on more recent, nationwide developments, particularly state policies that promote the circular economy and the digitalization of recycling. It gives valuable examples of how some companies are using big data, computer programs and the Internet to gain access to recyclables.
The two following chapters deal with the “human factor,” as Landsberger puts it. Chapter three contains a study of sorting and discarding practices prevalent in Beijing's local communities nowadays. It highlights the central role played by self-employed migrant workers in the collection, sorting and transportation of residents' recyclables and the parallel existence and success of companies that offer similar services but give them an organizational and technological twist (such as the waste collection and sorting company Hong Chao). As for chapter four, it looks more closely at migrant workers, who have dominated the collection and sorting of recyclables in large Chinese cities since the early reform era. It describes their working and living conditions and analyses the networks these people form part of.
A fifth chapter addresses efforts by state authorities to educate the population and improve awareness about waste-related problems. It stresses their limited efficacy and the confusion that persists among Chinese citizens about desirable daily-life behaviour. In the sixth and seventh chapter, the reader finds information about (respectively) the role of environmental activists in efforts to reduce waste and manage it more properly, and the risks and benefits linked with incineration, a disposal option that has been enjoying considerable official and corporate support throughout China in recent years. Finally, the eighth and final chapter highlights take-aways and offers a few suggestions for improvement.
As an introduction to the socio-political dimension of MSW management in China, Beijing Garbage serves its purpose well. The text reads well and is supported with illustrations, the information is comprehensive and up to date, the reasoning is rigorous and key publications are duly referenced – with special acknowledgement for precursors. Landsberger deserves recognition and should be commended for taking the trouble of compiling available information and presenting it in a structured and convincing way. His own fieldwork (mainly interviews), carried out in Beijing between March and May 2017, produced empirical material that he mobilizes skilfully to add examples and illustrations and offer a situated perspective.
That said, the author formulates relatively few arguments of his own. Some are quite valuable, others less so. His discussion of the advent of O2O companies in China, for instance, represents an original and timely contribution. While high hopes continue to be placed in these new types of actors nowadays, Landsberger shows that they have done little so far to improve waste management efficiency or provide migrant workers with formal employment. He puts forward that they mainly aim to take advantage of state subsidies for the digitalization of industry, an argument that I, as a scholar with similar research interests, find most convincing.
By contrast, Landsberger's analysis of the stance of city residents on MSW generation and disposal, which he presents as the book's main contribution (p. 22), hardly offers any new insight, at least as seen from a discard studies standpoint. The observations he makes and the conclusions he arrives at can for the most part be found in existing publications in this field that deal with other megacities – which raises the question, left open by Landsberger, of the specificity of Beijing or China more broadly. In this sense, the gap the author claims to have filled does not appear as a crucial one.
In terms of audience, Beijing Garbage is likely to appeal to those who have limited knowledge of the topic at hand – indeed, the didactic tone seems to reveal an intention to address students. Scholars with expertise in both contemporary China studies and discard studies, for their part, may not be entirely satisfied with the ratio between novelty and legacy. They may find that publishing new empirical data, detailed analysis (e.g. pp. 112–15) and original arguments in article rather than book format would have made more sense, as it would have spared them the trouble of having to fish those out of a mass of familiar information and explanations.
In short, Beijing Garbage may not be an authoritative study on the socio-political dimension of MSW management in China, but it nevertheless constitutes a most welcome addition, be it only because there existed no book-length overview of existing knowledge and scholarship on this topic until now.
