Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Shifting Perceptions on Sanitation Through the Urban Integration of Wastewater Infrastructure

Abstract

The decentralization and sanitization of industrial processes essential to the operation of our cities has contributed to the creation of sprawling waste-landscapes and a diminished connection, and perception of accountability, to the surrounding environments. These singularly efficient infrastructural and industrial processes, separated from urban centres and hidden from plain view, are afforded the opportunity to run unaccountable to their environments, both environmentally and socially. Through the urban and cultural integration of wastewater treatment infrastructure in Victoria, BC, waste and waste-landscapes are revealed and repurposed as clear and understandable resources for economic, environmental, and public benefit.