Tibetan Buddhism in the Age of Waste

Abstract

Taking examples from lived Tibetan Buddhism, this article explores the role of religion in the generation, sorting, and handling of waste that is produced or ends up in the religious field. Rather than assuming that waste is the negative and worthless endpoint of consumption, it introduces the concepts of “waste imaginaries” and “waste trajectories” to examine the importance of religion in the relationship between how and why things come to be defined and sorted as waste and the ways in which they are then handled and treated. By examining how Tibetan Buddhists talk about and act around different kinds of waste, both sacred and banal, the article unfolds the moral politics of waste, showing how waste trajectories are negotiated through changing and sometimes conflicting waste imaginaries.