Municipal waste management in Northern Ireland: exploring the circular economy using Transition Work

Abstract

This study explains the lack of progress towards a more effective circular economy in Northern Ireland by critically analysing its municipal waste management system. It critically examines the limitations of the concept of a circular economy, how it is represented in policy, the extent to which it is being implemented in practice, and the barriers to greater implementation. The study is situated within the Sustainability Transitions research field, making an empirical contribution through using the Transition Work framework to evaluate the system and offering some insights on its usefulness as a framework. Primary data on the NI waste system is collected largely through 29 thematically analysed semi-structured interviews sourced from three distinct actor groupings: waste management actors, local authority/policy actors, and niche actors.

Analysis of this data provides in-depth understanding of an established waste management system which is encountering a number of economic and governance challenges and hosts various points of contestation between actors. The system is shown to be undergoing potentially disruptive policy changes, which are designed to promote circularity, but the current regime is locked-into a waste export model by a combination of regime, niche, and landscape pressures. Circularity-promoting niche activities are found to be under supported and unable to scale. Whilst Transition Work was useful to prove these issues in depth, it was found to have a weakness in its lack of conceptualisation of landscape and macro scale concerns, which were identified as an important element of transition when studying waste management, deserving of further research.

The study finds that transition pathways towards a more circular or wholly sustainable economy will require upcoming policy changes to be steadfast in their implementation, and may require further policy measures enforced at the UK or EU level that reduce the region’s dependence on exporting waste.

Date of Award	Dec 2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Sponsors	Northern Ireland Department for the Economy
Supervisor	Stephen McIlwaine (Supervisor), M. Satish Kumar (Supervisor) & Oana Istrate (Supervisor)