Accumulation by contamination: Worldwide cost-shifting strategies of capital in waste management

With this article, we propose an analytical and conceptual tool to illuminate connections between capital development and environmental injustices. The research examines how capital-driven industrial policies foster changes in social metabolisms and cause new socio-environmental impacts, leading to ecological distribution conflicts. It also explores why diverse actors mobilise and resist these changes. Building on Kapp’s ecological economics theory of social costs and David Harvey’s concept of accumulation by dispossession, we highlight the role of capital accumulation in environmental injustices through cost-shifting strategies, terming it “Accumulation by Contamination” (AbC). In this context, AbC refers to the process wherein capital socialises the costs of contamination, degrading the means of existence and bodies of human beings who oppose these processes of capital valorisation and engage in environmental conflicts. We make a compelling case for AbC by exploring waste-related conflicts at various industrial developmental stages. Waste, viewed as a ’common bad,’ emerges as a strategic realm for capitalists seeking to expand the scale and scope of accumulation. The intricacies of waste management, its market potential, and guaranteed profitability through subsidies and processes of financialisation attract significant investments globally. Quantitative and qualitative waste management assessments demonstrate that waste policies often favour businesses, leading to cost-shifting of waste management to society (in Naples, Italy; and Delhi, in India) and the dispossession of waste-pickers (in Delhi). More broadly, we emphasise the importance of integrating ecological economics and Marxist critical geography to address environmental challenges. We also analytically study the diverse actors responding to various capital strategies, fostering transformative political actions for a sustainable future. Climate change is arguably the most significant waste disposal conflict due to excessive carbon dioxide production, representing a quintessential example of Accumulation by Contamination (AbC).