Ecological civilization, anti-incineration activism and the rolling out of ‘compulsory waste-sorting’ programs in Chinese cities

Communities across China are now being required by municipalities to sort their own waste. This chapter develops an understanding of this recent wave of community reimagination by tracing the changing relationship between the state, society and urban waste. It sees the reimagination as a part of the state’s effort to redraw the boundary of its grand developmental vision ‘ecological civilization’, incorporating recycling into the vision and yet at the same time eliminating the urban informality that waste-sorting, trade and processing have long been embedded in. The chapter points out that boundary-redrawing has been driven primarily by middle-class urban residents’ opposition to the vision’s promotion of waste-to-energy incineration. In addition, it puts forth the observation that the elimination of informal recycling networks has made ordinary residents in cities more alienated from the waste that they produce at home.