Garbage, society, and environment in a Mexican municipio: The case of Coxcatlán, Puebla, Mexico

Abstract

This dissertation examines the practice of garbage management and its construction as a set of environmental issues across the municipio of Coxcatlán, Puebla, Mexico. The generation and sustainable management of garbage are pressing environmental issues around the world. This is especially true in a rural Mexican municipios, like Coxcatlán, where municipal governments attempt to deliver garbage service within larger policy directives with limited infrastructure and accessibility challenges. The different geographies of garbage management created by differential accessibility to formal management, local governance, the influence of traditional practices, and public education among other factors contribute to how garbage is perceived of as an environmental issue. To understand the practical and discursive management of garbage across Coxcatlán municipio, this study employs 1) an analysis of the current state of garbage management in Mexico as a whole and Coxcatlán in particular 2) a household garbage census to illustrate the management of garbage in the home from a practice-based perspective, 3) a Q-method study to understand the subjectivities regarding what garbage is and how it should be managed in the home, 4) a risk mapping survey to describe the heterogeneity of perception of garbage-related issues across the municipio, and 5) a litter quantification and classification study to compare perceptions of litteredness to the material realities of garbage that fall outside of management. The results of the broader analysis of the garbage issue in Mexico and Coxcatlán frames the material magnitude of garbage and the trajectory of management through which this material passes. The extensive municipio-wide garbage management census shows how differential accessibility to formal garbage management essentially creates two spatialities or models of garbage management with different effects on residents and the environment in each. The Q-method study identifies six different perspectives on what garbage is and how it should be managed and the participatory risk mapping study describes precisely what are the most pressing garbage is- sues to local residents and how this is contingent on spatial and demographic factors. Lastly, the litter study results highlight the importance of estimating the perception of an issue in addition to more quantitative framings. All of the results in the context of a regional geography of Coxcatlán provide a fuller picture of garbage, society and the environment beyond simple garbage generation narratives.