Abstract
Alhonnoro, Leipämaa-Leskinen, and Syrjälä analyse distributed agency in food waste, focusing on how non-human actors participate in production and/or reduction of food waste in retailing. Adopting the Actor-Network Theory, they follow how bread may—or may not—turn to waste. They zoom in on the interactions of three particular sets of non-human actors—bread and its package, natural-temporal actors, and techno-material actors—with other human and non-human actors in the food waste network. The chapter outlines practical implications and suggestions for food waste reduction by showing how food waste in retailing is not merely a human-led process that can be solved at the aggregate level, but a dispersed and complex issue needing analysis of the operational reality in the store environment.
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Alhonnoro, L., Leipämaa-Leskinen, H., Syrjälä, H. (2020). Distributed Agency in Food Waste—A Focus on Non-human Actors in Retail Setting. In: Närvänen, E., Mesiranta, N., Mattila, M., Heikkinen, A. (eds) Food Waste Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20561-4_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20561-4_6
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