Tracing Waste, Envisioning Sustainability : Reflections on Tourism and Community Practices for Collective Futures

In our world, waste is everywhere: from its most obvious manifestation as residual material, it has developed and evolved into being investigated as a trope for our contemporary era. This collective volume explores how the tourism industry is a significant producer of waste and surplus in its material, cultural and symbolic forms, affecting local communities and territories. Developed as part of the PNRR – funded iNEST – Young Researchers project, the book adopts an interdisciplinary approach – spanning chemistry, economics, arts, and humanities – to examine sustainability beyond institutional rhetoric and capitalist perspectives. Starting with the case study of waste cooking oil as a recyclable element, looking at its multiple layers of complexity, each chapter presents an original outlook on these themes and their geographical relevance in the North East of Italy. Contributors investigate extractive tourist dynamics, marginalized narratives, and circular practices. Across nine chapters, which include visual illustrations by the artist Elena Mazzi, the book highlights how community initiatives, artistic interventions and participatory methods can regenerate both places and knowledge, suggesting alternatives for reimagining tourism as a more equitable, collaborative, and environmentally grounded practice.