The Research Council of Finland-funded project DECAY (2022–2026) examines our contemporary trashscapes beyond the utopian fantasy of the endless transformation of waste into value.
The project is situated within social scientific research on waste, and its overall aim is to formulate a critique of the circular economy by disrupting the idea of endless recycling and waste-as-resource. We argue that all waste cannot be reclaimed. Rather, there always remains something in waste that does not circulate and cannot be recycled or reused.
The research is carried out through three ethnographic sub-studies on food waste, plastic waste and waste incineration ash. Together these sub-studies not only shed light on the leaky realities of waste and trace the journeys of trash through different stages of its social life, but also enhance our understanding of the crucial role that everyday practices of patching up and tinkering play in the constitution of the circular economy.