Polluted Politics
The Development of an Israeli-Palestinian E-Waste Economy

Polluted Politics chronicles research into the emergence and impacts of the Israeli-Palestinian e-waste economy and pathways for change.

John-Michael Davis (Author), Yaakov Garb (Author)

9781009483636, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 December 2024

286 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.1 cm, 0.54 kg

This book describes the politically charged afterlife of Israeli electronics gathered by and processed in a cluster of rural Palestinian villages that has emerged as an informal regional e-waste hub. As with many such hubs throughout the global South, rudimentary recycling practices represent a remarkable entrepreneurial means of livelihood amidst poverty and constraint, that generates staggering damage to local health and the environment, with tensions between these reaching a breaking point. John-Michael Davis and Yaakov Garb draw on a decade of community-based action research with and within these villages to contextualise the emergence, realities and future options of the Palestinian hub within both the geo-political realities of Israel's occupation of the West Bank as well as shifting understandings of e-waste and recycling dynamics and policies globally. Their stories and analysis are a poignant window into this troubled region and a key sustainability challenge in polarized globalized world.

Acknowledgements
Part I. Positioning E-waste Hubs: 1. The emergence of e-waste hubs
2. The west line e-waste economy
3. Crude portrayals, crude proposals
4. Co-creating e-waste hub futures
5. Can tails wag the dog? a hub-driven approach to e-waste reform
Part II. Pathways and Predicaments: 6. E-waste burning: causes, consequences, and corrections
7. The toxic elephant in the room
8. Border frictions: formalizing the Palestinian e-waste industry?
9. Open questions, opening futures
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]