Taking Care of Our Own Waste

Abstract

At the initiative of the Environmental Protection Department (EPD), a centralised sewerage system was built throughout Mui Wo from 2009. Before the works, the sewerage system only covered the centre of the rural town (mainly the private apartment blocks and the public housing estate near the ferry pier). The government’s plan was to lay sewerage pipes connecting individual houses in all villages to the central pipes. This would replace the septic tanks that are used in most village houses. This chapter tries to examine how the representation of the rural as ‘backward’ and ‘inferior’ to the urban order is related to the construction of the sewerage system and the replacement of the septic tanks, which can be understood as the chasing away of ‘dirt’ in Mary Douglas’s sense. I argue that the sewerage system is another example of developmentalism, which is further propelled by the globalisation of capitalism. I also analyse how the globally mobile ‘transnational capitalist class’, as one of the most important building blocks of globalisation, gives additional force to the ideology of development. Finally, I look at how the transformation of waste can create new values.