What Is Waste? Place-Thought, Infrastructures of Pollution, and Wasteways of Colonialism at Deer Island

Abstract: Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant, managed by the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority, processes wastewater that comes from forty-three of Massachusetts's cities and towns. This article is an investigation of the environmental history of the site of one of the largest wastewater treatment plants in the United States. By situating the discussion within the broader framework of discard studies, the research underscores how waste-management strategies enact colonial entitlements, viewing land and water as mere repositories for anthropogenic discards. The historical and ongoing colonial violence inscribed on Deer Island is critically analyzed through the lens of place-thought, a concept rooted in Indigenous cosmologies that recognize Land as a living entity. The paper provokes an alternative waste imaginary—an ethics of digestion—that recognizes the agency of nonhuman actors and promotes relational, rather than extractive, engagements with place.