Eco-populism and the Question of Wastewater

Eco-populism has now become a frequently pronounced term in the sphere of environmental politics. It began as a movement during the 1980s against environmental injustice by coordinated effort of millions of communities. With urban centers proliferating and industrial development surging at a fast pace, environmental pollution became a big issue. Large-scale generation of toxic waste heavily contaminated the water-bodies, jeopardizing the living standards of the common people around the world. This gave rise to a gradual concern for the protection of the environment. Initially it was seen as a global or a national concern, but soon it reached the popular/ordinary masses and turned into a local issue as well. In this entry, I would like to focus on how the question of wastewater became tied with eco-populism and gave rise to widespread dynamic popular movements against hazardous waste production and water pollution. Towards the beginning of the twenty-first century, eco-populism thus became a catalyst that not only sparked of radical movements against environmental injustice but gave birth to a new ideological basis where wastewater was no longer being considered a threat to the environment but a significant resource which could be reused and recycled.