ABSTRACT
This chapter traces patterns of urban re-use and recycling during the pre-modern and the modern periods. It argues that these secondary markets and its actors were initially triggered by the high value of materials and relatively low labor costs. The decrease in prices for materials and commodities and new concepts of urban order (foremost sanitation) started to change these circulations from the nineteenth century onwards. However, over the long run continuities must not be overlooked, as these markets evolved due to the demand from the consumer as well as the supply side. These demands altered ‘traditional’ forms and generated new forms of circulations and markets. With the evolution of the mass consumer society recycling and re-use increasingly became a question of how to cope with abundant materials and this issue thereby entered the environmental discourse. The paper reconstructs the circulations of selected objects, namely resources, and identifies the main actors and driving forces involved.
