Cycling and recycling: histories of sustainable practices

摘要

Cycling and recycling might not appear to have much to do with one another. But this volume proposes that both are old technologies that have been revived in the past 50 years, in the name of enhancing sustainability, and so they warrant exploration in a single volume. Twelve essays then explore questions on the relationship between sustainable practices of the present and those of the past and the histories of how different nations and communities have succeeded or failed in reviving old practices. The introduction by Oldenziel and Trischler notes how the growth of cycling and recycling since the 1970s is often seen as a radical break with a modern, industrial, 'throwa way'society. But the editors propose that sustainable practices have much more diverse, unpredictable and contested histories than such narratives of discontinuity might suggest. They invoke as inspiration for their approach historical, sociological and environmental studies that eschew a focus on innovation and novelty in favour of studies of use, maintenance and technological revival. Essays then follow divided into sections on cycling and recycling, bridged by a single essay considering both, and two short 'reflections' to conclude.