Event Details

The fourth biennial Opening The Bin conference will meet in Le Mans, France, bringing together scholars from multiple disciplines.

In April 2017 close to 100 scholars from the social sciences and the humanities from all over the world met for the first time at Lund University to discuss waste, culture and society during the Opening the bin conference in Helsingborg. The second conference Re-open the Bin was held online in May 2021, hosted by the University of Gothenburg, Sweden and attracted over 100 participants online. Both conferences were organized by a constellation of waste researchers. In June 2023, Lancaster University held Opening the Bin 3: for 3 days, nearly 100 researchers met in the United Kingdom. It is now time for Opening the Bin 4, to explore la vie en bin.

There is currently a call for papers, deadline is 30 April 2025.

Registration costs can be found on the conference website. Thanks to the generous financial support of the Lancaster University Waste and Circular Economy Hub in the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business, a few bursaries are available for participants from low- and middle-income countries to cover part of the costs of visa, travel, and accommodation. Please send a one-page application with motivations, budget, and timeline for visa application to Alison Stowell.