Waste wars‐ public attitudes and the politics of place in waste management strategies

Arguments about waste management in Ireland are so deeply contested that they have been conceptualised as cultural wars. Key arguments between the warring factions have revolved around what kind of processes will provide a sustainable waste management strategy and at what scale the conflicts over waste should be resolved. To date much of the research into waste management has been fixated on technical issues, institutional arrangements and the top end of governance structures as significant sites for negotiation about waste. Attention to wider publics in these waste wars has been confined to a surface examination of NIMBYism and the State‐based development of information‐based awareness campaigns. It is proposed in this paper that in order to approach the strong demands of sustainable waste management through multilevel governance in Ireland, as stipulated by EU institutions, a more serious consideration of the role of publics in waste management needs to be undertaken.