Stories of Waste and Value

Growing mountains of waste, decreasing resources and global environmental pollution confront us today with challenges of unprecedented dimensions. Against this background, interest in sustainable and resource-saving concepts is increasing; it is not uncommon to fall back on (supposedly) traditional approaches from times past. But what do we really know about the roots of the circular economy? What turns everyday objects into worthless rubbish, what turns others into highly sought-after objects? What actually is waste?

Researchers from various disciplines in the humanities and natural sciences have joined forces to get to the bottom of these and similar questions in short stories. In them, they provide en passant or explicit insights into the broad spectrum of methods available to research today. The selected stories are loosely based on the authors’ research projects, whereby emphasis was placed on bringing together different disciplinary perspectives. Moreover, it is noteworthy that all academic levels – from Master’s degree students to professors – are represented. The result of these sometimes very different perspectives on seemingly everyday things leads to entertaining, sometimes surprising and often instructive insights that are quite intentionally thought-provoking about our world today.