Photo of Linus Ekman Burgman

Linus Ekman Burgman

PhD student

Interested in how we utilize different waste resources. Right now, looking at sewage sludge and how it can be both waste and a resource, natural and unnatural.

Waste or Resource? How residues can come to use

If waste is matter out of place, then how can it be put in a place where it is something else and who and what is doing that? By studying waste, in this case sewage sludge, interdisciplinary, new perspectives can open up our view of the socio-technical system and increase our understanding of this hugely complex material.

Growing population and increased sanitation results in a residue, sewage sludge. The common practices of disposal in many countries have been landfilling and application to agricultural land. These practices are questioned as the sludge might contain potential harmful substances.

Sweden is currently in a potential transition from land application to a ban. There are narratives relating dangers and fears to the sludge. Sludge can be the unhygienic excreta from humans, full of potential diseases. It can also be the natural resource that has been contaminated by the waste of modern society, the natural and unnatural mixed. The sludge is thus, a threatening waste that must be handled with caution. Burning can relief ourselves from the burden of the problem. However, there are also other narratives, seeing the potential of the sludge and the natural return of it to the soil as fertilizer and the overestimation of risks and dangers.

These stories of naturalness, resourcefulness, pollution and waste establish a base for studying the socio-scientific technological transition of sewage sludge. I will look at the possibility of different interpretations of the reality of sludge and how this is being translated into norms and preferred management technologies.

Publications

2023

Marzieh Bagheri, Torben Bauer, Linus Ekman Burgman, Elisabeth Wetterlund (2023) Fifty years of sewage sludge management research: Mapping researchers' motivations and concerns Journal of Environmental Management, Vol. 325, Article 116412 Continue to DOI

2022

Linus Ekman (2022) What sewage sludge is and conflicts in Swedish circular economy policymaking Environmental Sociology, Vol. 8, p. 292-301 Continue to DOI

2021

Linus Ekman Burgman, Björn Wallsten (2021) Should the Sludge Hit the Farm?: - How Chemo-Social Relations Affect Policy Efforts to Circulate Phosphorus in Sweden Sustainable Production and Consumption, Vol. 27, p. 1488-1497 Continue to DOI

2020

Torben Bauer, Linus Ekman Burgman, Lale Andreas, Anders Lagerkvist (2020) Effects of the Different Implementation of Legislation Relating to Sewage Sludge Disposal in the EU Detritus, Vol. 10, p. 92-99 Continue to DOI

2017

Linus Ekman Burgman, Robin Engström (2017) The Many Feminist Voices of the Radical Right: An actor-oriented study of the Sweden Democrats' conception of equality HumaNetten, Vol. 38, p. 1-15 Continue to DOI

Supervisors

Organisation