About
Australia is experiencing an urban waste crisis. Long-term solutions require new strategies to reduce waste generation. To be effective, these strategies will need the engagement and active participation of households.
This project examines households as an essential part of transitions to low waste cities. The capacity for experimentation and innovation in households can and must contribute to these transitions. The project will propose realistic pathways for decreasing waste generation by integrating studies of demographic profiles of household waste generation, experiments with households trialling low waste practices, analysis of policy rationales and policy co-design. The findings of this research will be critical for understanding and supporting pathways for transitioning to low waste cities. The knowledge developed will support urban sustainability transitions in Australia and internationally.
Our main research question is: “What is the potential for household and policy innovation to contribute to sustainability transitions in the case of low-waste cities?” We ask the following sub-questions:
- What patterns exist in household waste profiles and how are they best explained? How does wealth, socio-demographic profile, education, dwelling and location relate to the waste profiles of households?
- What strategies do households undertake to manage their waste, e.g. frugal households (lowering consumption), resourceful households (recycling, repair and reuse) or technological solutions (smart households) and what barriers do they face in implementation?
- How can government and private sector stakeholders support low-waste household innovation? How are households positioned in waste management policy and how could co-design of policy with stakeholders (councils, government and business) and citizens better connect with the innovative capacity of households?
Our project objectives are to:
- Develop an understanding of the role of household innovation in low waste transitions. This interdisciplinary comparative framework will allow the different studies in the project to work together . It will also be a major contribution to sustainability transitions research, which has largely ignored households as a relevant site for innovation and experimentation. At the end of the project, this framework will be tested against the research findings.
- Develop a set of household waste profiles across the Australian population. This typology will allow us to establish baseline evidence on low waste and high waste households in Australian cities. A national view of waste generation across the country is important to support effective policy and interventions.
- Build in-depth understanding of the capacity for innovation in households and the barriers and incentives for low waste ways of living. Little is known about what innovations households are already generating, or how householders themselves view novel approaches to waste reduction.
- Generate knowledge about what make effective policy to achieve low waste cities through co-design. We will bring key stakeholders together to assess current policy options and co-design policies that support households to be part of the transition to low waste cities.
- Facilitate international knowledge exchange on household innovation and policy design for sustainable urban transitions through a symposium with international leaders in the fields of household sociology, urban geography and sustainability transitions.
Funding: ARC Discovery Project 2020-2022