Get in touch
Henry would love to speak to anyone interested in working on the history waste management or if you just want to learn more.
Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Centre for Culture and Humanities
The war on waste
Using the history of waste to strengthen the Circular Economy
The Challenge
It is impossible to tackle the environmental crises facing our world without changing the way we make, use and dispose of things.
UK households produce a staggering 26 million tonnes of waste each year, and around 5% of our greenhouse gas emissions come directly from dealing with this mountain of rubbish. There are indirect costs, too, from the materials lost and the energy taken to grow or make the item in the first place.
To secure a greener, more sustainable future, we need to embrace a Circular Economy. This is a system where materials remain in use for longer, which reduces the demand for new products by reusing, repairing and recycling more.
We need a new relationship with waste, but we also need to get the basics right, before this is possible. Enormous quantities of valuable material are needlessly lost each year as recycling rates have stalled for over a decade.
The Approach
Dr Henry Irving is a historian of waste and resources. His research spans a variety of subjects - from the invention of modern landfill to the wartime recycling of food waste. He is using this research to write a book on the 'rubbish history' of Britain over past two centuries.
The research Henry has conducted shows how attitudes to waste have changed over time. Although this is not a simple story of progress, Henry’s work shows that waste has shifted from a risk that needed to be cleansed, to a problem that needed to be managed, to a resource that could potentially be recovered.
Henry works with policy makers and the recycling industry to use history to strengthen the Circular Economy. Through talks and workshops, he provides both a long view of resource policy and detailed case studies to encourage new ways of thinking about current practices.
This activity has been supported by the environmental charity WRAP (The Waste and Resources Action Programme) and funded through a British Academy Innovation Fellowship.
The Impact
Henry's research is helping to create greener, more sustainable communities for the future. To achieve this, he has worked with:
- Government and industry to ensure history is considered in policymaking
- Educators and waste professionals to help the next generation understand the Circular Economy
- Creative practitioners to apply previously successful techniques to behaviour change campaigns
Case studies
Henry's research has ensured that we value and learn lessons from the past.
His findings have helped inform Scottish legislation on the Circular Economy and a House of Commons POSTNote on the problems posed by historic landfills.
Henry has also worked directly with waste professionals to use history to rethink challenges and find innovative solutions. This has included working with communications specialists to increase participation and cut contamination, and with local authority recycling officers to help recognise the value of volunteers.
Dr Irving took us through what we can learn from the past and made his presentation relevant to the latest sustainability regulations, such as Extended Producer Responsibility and Deposit Return Schemes. His knowledge and insight prompted fresh discussions on how and why we recycle, and how future systems can be improved.
Beyond the university, Henry's research has been a valuable educational tool.
In 2023, a chance discovery in an archive led him to a school in Swansea, where he helped pupils research the story of a former pupil who won a national essay competition about recycling in 1943.
The children used the essay as inspiration to create a series of posters and a whole-school piece of artwork about plastic waste.
This project was supported by WRAP Cymru and used as part of their Mighty Food Waste Mission to promote food waste recycling.
I will reduce, reuse and recycle and plant more flowers in my house.
Henry has collaborated with designers, filmmakers and games developers to use history as inspiration for behaviour change campaigns.
This included a project with Leeds City Council to produce a campaign film based on Second World War propaganda to improve glass recycling rates.
Wartime films were powerful tools and their messages hit home... by revisiting these same ideas today, we can connect with audiences on an emotional level and encourage them to see recycling as a way to meet the big challenges we face.
Find out more
- You can discover how we have dealt with waste over the past two centuries in this short, open access chapter written for the South Yorkshire Sustainability Centre
- You can read about the policy lessons of wartime recycling in this History and Policy paper
- You can listen to Henry talking about the parallels between the 1940s and the 2020s in this CIWM podcast
- And you can learn how Leeds pioneered the green wheelie bin in this short blog written for Leeds Libraries
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