Marco Armiero goes straight to the scrap heap in “Poubellocene” – Libération

In his “Chronicles of the Age of Waste,” the Italian historian deciphers socio-ecological relationships in the time of the climate crisis.

The waste that is accumulating irremediably, on our planet as well as in space now, is a difficult reality to face. It is sometimes the subject of shocking reports on the dump of a country in the Global South or on the “fifth continent” floating in the ocean. It stealthily jumps out at us or under our noses, in the morning in front of our house, before the garbage trucks take it away. Invisible, it is nevertheless everywhere. The Italian historian Marco Armiero devotes a fascinating essay to it: his Chronicles of the Waste Era are based around the original concept of “garbagelocene”, “geological marker characteristic of the new era”, believes the professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. It is not the waste itself that interests him, it is already the subject of much research in the social sciences. It is rather what creates it, according to him: “the deleterious socio-ecological relationships that discard places and humans”. And made that “certain beings, certain places and certain memories are considered disposable.”

The book opens with a critique of the notion of the Anthropocene, which would have us all be in the same boat, faced with the disruptions of our planet.