Introduction to “One Word: Plastics

Solid waste (AKA ‘garbage’ or ‘trash’) provides an opportunity for anthropologists to practice and make a real difference in the environment, climate change, and in social and infrastructural inequalities. Solid waste, with its increasingly large plastic content, is also methodologically and theoretically interesting to more of us than archaeologists. The solid waste management (SWM) sector provides an extraordinary opportunity for fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration. And since the field has not been overpopulated by social scientists, it’s possible to blaze a new substantive, methodological, and theoretical path. Clean Cities, Blue Ocean (CCBO) is the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) global program to address ocean plastic pollution under the United States government’s Save Our Seas INTRODUCTION TO “ONE WORD: PLASTICS” PRACTICING ANTHROPOLOGY IN SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT: USAID CLEAN CITIES, BLUE OCEAN