Material agency and thwarted circularity. Reading the constraints of transition from a local case of the French alumina's industry

Abstract

We examine the implementation of the circular economy in an alumina plant emblematic of the French and European metallurgy – Alteo-Pechiney, in Gardanne. The alumina production generates a considerable amount of a muddy residue, loaded with heavy metals and radioactive materials: “the red mud.” These residues are unwanted materials that manufacturers used to have to dispose of, but since the rise of the circular economy, they are now trying to convert them into resources. However, the question of waste valorization is neither a new one nor exclusive to the circular economy, but has historically been part of the industrial engineering outlook. Taking a step aside from the normative and techno-solutionist reading of the circular economy transition, we assume that the development of forms of circular economy would be less the result of successful technological innovation than the outcome of interdependent constraints over time: political and material. So, what does the case of the red mud in Gardanne tell us about the materiality and the governmentality of such a circular economy transition? How has such a trajectory been affected by the effects of materiality and politicization? The article shows the full value of a socio-historical analysis to reconstruct the political and material trajectory of the residues from alumina production in its historical depth. By doing so, it highlights the non-linearity of change, with a constant overlap on the long run between linear and circular logic, largely due to the materiality of residues. This also demonstrates that the materiality of a waste management system is conversely the result of intense historical political work. Our reading of materiality also opens the door to the comprehension of complementary key drivers, in this configuration of interdependence: issues of social, territorial and environmental justice – beyond the usual optimistic and prescriptive storytelling about “transition”.