Contained Redistribution: The Technopolitics of Plastic Burning

Plastic stands for designed materials, chemically synthesized for massive use in industry and commerce. As plastic production continues to accelerate, plastic waste is incinerated, globally, as a preferred—though contested—technology for disposal. Burning plastic can be harmful; many associated chemicals, including those produced by burning certain plastics, are potentially toxic. They accumulate in bio-geological environments, known to entail serious health effects in humans for generations. Thus, matters of containment—emission filtration, limiting exposure, spatial localization, and so on—assume technopolitical significance.

This paper draws on ethnographic research of plastic waste burning in India, demonstrating how enactment and claims of containment are actually slippery. It identifies thematic overlaps between “open” and “controlled” burning—two prevalent incineration practices with distinct perceptions of efficiency, risk management, and accountability. Although emission persists in both technologies, containment is also found to map onto other networks of practice and mediation, maintaining various spatial, social, sanitary, technical, commercial, legal, and political arrangements. Foregrounding materiality and practice, the lens of “contained redistribution” is proposed to visibilize and critique practices of emplaced, embodied localization, endangerment, and abandonment, actualized with plastic burning that re-entrenches a violent politics.