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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2020
This article reflects on the role that urban history can play in contemporary efforts to reduce waste. It is focused on a public history project that uses the history of waste management in World War II as a critical vantage point from which to consider current debates over reduction, reuse and recycling. Placing this project within a broader discussion of public history in the United Kingdom, the article argues that urban history is well placed to encourage a critical understanding of the present.
I would like to thank all of those who have contributed to the War on Waste project and the Centre for Culture and the Arts at Leeds Beckett University for their support. I would also like to thank Shane Ewen and Tosh Warwick for championing public history through the Urban History beyond the Academy event, as well as for their insightful comments on the first version of this article.
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56 Zero Waste Leeds is run by Social Business Brokers (a community interest company) and works with a number of third sector organizations in the city. This has included the Open Data Institute, Leeds Repair Cafe, the Real Junk Food Project, Refill, Seagulls Reuse and SCRAP.
57 This initiative, #LeedsbyExample, has involved the introduction of 124 new recycling bins in Leeds City Centre. In the first six months, these diverted 600,000 coffee cups, 65,000 cans and 55,000 plastic bottles from landfill. See Hubbub, ‘Leeds by example: impact report summary’ (2019). Available from www.hubbub.org.uk/FAQs/leeds-by-example-impact-report-2019.