Rethinking waste management: From “waste as resource” to “place as responsibility”

Abstract

Biomimicry in waste management (WM) is commonly associated with closing material loops, improving resource efficiency, and treating waste as a resource. This approach is valuable, but it remains insufficient for assessing and governing how waste systems affect particular places, distribute environmental burdens, and connect responsible actors with the consequences of their decisions. To address this gap, the paper introduces "place as responsibility" as a complementary perspective for WM. Drawing on biomimicry as a heuristic perspective, together with resilience theory, niche construction theory, and complex adaptive systems, the paper argues that waste systems should be evaluated not only through material recovery, but also through their effects on ecological integrity, accountability, and feedback between actions and consequences. The proposed perspective is organized around three interrelated dimensions: ecological integrity, embedded accountability, and relational feedback. Illustrative examples from Japan, the United States (San Francisco), and South Korea show how these dimensions may be expressed through different mechanisms: socially embedded practices and local accountability in Japan, institutional commitment and public engagement in San Francisco, and direct economic feedback through weight-based food waste charging in South Korea. The concept does not replace circular economy (CE) approaches but broadens their scope by introducing place as an evaluative category. It offers a basis for more place-sensitive waste governance and assessment.