Hervé Corvellec

This study shows that the production of industrial and commercial waste should form part of normal organisational practices. When asked about waste prevention, representatives of food, textile, electronics and construction companies in Sweden have difficulties highlighting concrete waste-prevention objectives, measures and outcomes. Instead, they highlight economic, technical, and organisational barriers that prevent them from engaging in waste prevention, thereby endowing the pro- duction of waste with an economic, technical and organisational rationality. This triple rationalisation of waste production amounts to the managerial normalisation of waste that obstructs the implementation of waste prevention policies. Thus, we suggest that these policies aim to de-normalise industrial and commercial waste in similar ways to the measures used to de-normalise household waste.