The Territorial Construction of Waste Value: A Territorial Resource-Based Approach in the Fès-Meknès Region

Abstract

This research analyzes the territorial construction of household waste value through the territorial resources approach. While this approach has been widely used to explain the mechanisms through which specific resources are revealed, activated, and valorized, its application to the specific field of household waste management and valorization remains relatively underdeveloped. This study therefore seeks to contribute to filling this gap by examining how the transition of waste, long regarded as a burden to be disposed of, toward the status of a territorial resource depends on its recognition by local actors, as well as on the dynamics of activation and valorization developed at the territorial level.

Based on a qualitative approach, this research draws on 16 semi-structured interviews conducted with a diverse range of territorial actors in the Fès-Meknès region, including stakeholders from the public, private, and associative sectors, as well as actors directly involved in waste collection, sorting, and valorization activities. The data collected were examined using thematic content analysis. The findings show that the value of waste does not lie solely in its material properties or market potential, but is progressively constructed through the mobilization of local know-how, collective learning, coordination, cooperation, and actor networking. In the field, these dynamics are reflected in particular in the development of sorting and valorization activities at the Fès and Meknès sites, as well as in the progressive integration of some waste pickers into more organized forms of valorization. These dynamics help reveal and activate the latent potential of waste as a resource and generate economic, social, and environmental value adapted to the specific characteristics of the territory. Waste valorization thus emerges as a collective and territorially embedded process that contributes to transforming a residual material into a genuine resource serving sustainable territorial development.

JEL Classification: Q53; Q56; R11.

Paper type: Empirical research