Where and how does waste live and circulate in our immediate environments? What values and practices shape waste production, management and reduction in Montréal today? In urban cities, waste is largely out of mind and out of site and yet the accumulation of unprocessed waste is a looming public-health crisis and a major contributor to climate change. Wastescapes is an educational project that has included two field courses, a series of cycling tours (self-guided or in groups), and a Zero-Waste bike challenge that invites students to engage critically with their own waste practices: from waste objects and materials to the afterlives of waste, its post-discard streams; from waste infrastructures and economies to practices including management, activism and governance.
The aim of Wastescapes is to build awareness and waste literacy and to develop methodologies to address waste together as problem and resource. Sites on our bike tours include the following overlapping areas: the everyday and/or the episodic; the infrastructural and/or the institutional; the private and/or the public; the communal and/or the corporate; the informal and/or the formal. With environmental justice, zero waste and labour politics as key critical lenses, we are collectively mapping scales of waste from individual to institutional, from local to global to emphasize the role of policy and governance in addressing this wicked problem. (Research and project leaders: MJ Thompson & Liz Miller)
Our cycling tours can happen via a DIY method using the APP or as a group tour.
To download the App for an Iphone
To download the App on Google Play.
TOURS:
The App is designed to let you find your own way between the sites, but here on the website, there are several curated tours suggesting routes on existing cycling and walking paths. The tours last from one to three hours, depending on your form of transport. Please note that the tours are not embedded into the App. If you want to follow our designated paths, download or print the tour PDF and use that along with the app to guide your urban exploration
- Scales of Waste: An Island, An Archipelago, and a River (on L’île Sainte–Hélène)
- Expo 67 AR/Chives (on L’île Sainte–Hélène)
- Food, Dirt and Scale
- Waste Aesthetics
Visit our website: https://wastescapes.com/
