Sustainable Transitions – Sanitary Waste Management – from Mismanagement to Sustainability – Leverhulme Doctoral Training Programme 2026-27
Details
Project area title: Sanitary Waste Management – from Mismanagement to Sustainability
Course: Applicants wanting to undertake this research project should apply for a PhD in Law
Funding: The University of Essex is offering seven PhD research scholarships for students to participate in a range of Sustainable Transitions DTP projects.
Overview
This is an opportunity to conduct fully funded interdisciplinary research under the Sustainable Transitions Leverhulme Doctoral Training Programme at the University of Essex.
The project will broadly focus on sanitary waste management ( which includes feminine/menstrual hygiene products, diapers and some types of medical waste). Sanitary waste has often been subsumed under broader categories such as municipal solid waste or biomedical waste leading to its lower perceived significance. Yet the mismanagement of sanitary waste can have dire health, safety and environmental consequences. Improper disposal and treatment systems can lead to bacterial growth, spread of infectious diseases and water and soil contamination. Waste disposal systems across jurisdictions are under tremendous pressure while trying to cope with the increasing uptake and consumerism of sanitary products. Moreover, the issue of sanitary wastes has strong gender dimensions, as sanitary products predominantly concern women’s health and hygiene which have historically been underrepresented and undervalued in academic research and policy discourse.
This interdisciplinary project should focus on specific themes against the broader backdrop of sanitary waste. These may include sustainable waste management in sensitive ecosystems, roles of state and non-state actors in managing waste and promoting sustainability, the relationship with waste management and the violation of human rights to health or water, mapping technological innovations in sanitary waste management. In-keeping with the Leverhulme Sustainable Transitions programme, the project must link sanitary waste management with sustainable development, sustainability challenges and/or the role/responsibility of state and private actors.
Supervisory team
Primary Discipline SupervisorLawDr Stephen Turner Primary Discipline SupervisorLawDr Angela Pine Secondary Discipline SupervisorLife SciencesProfessor Alex Dumbrell Secondary Discipline SupervisorLife Sciences
Interdisciplinary focus
This interdisciplinary project will be jointly supervised by faculty members of the Law and Life Sciences departments. The project can integratelaw, public health and sociology. Methods may include socio-legal analysis, comparative legal analysis, policy evaluation, law and policy mapping, stakeholder interviews, and integrating systematic review, meta-analyses and bioinformatics approaches commonly applied within the Life Sciences. The project may combine doctrinal research with empirical data collected by the candidate to inform debates around sustainability, regulatory compliance and equity.
Training and support
You will be supported through the Sustainable Transitions training programme which provides initial training in interdisciplinary research methods, training in the secondary discipline within the project area and ongoing training throughout the duration of the programme. All doctoral scholars benefit from the support of Proficio, which entitles you to £2,500 that can be used to purchase training courses either within or external to the University.
Additionally Sustainable Transitions scholars are entitled to £10,000 that can be used to cover research costs and further training. Scholars are encouraged to audit masters and degree level course where appropriate. You will also have the support of the Sustainable Transitions management team, as well as your own supervisory team. All Sustainable Transitions scholars will become part of the University of Essex Centre for Environment and Society through which ongoing events and networking opportunities are available.
Person specification
This opportunity would suit a candidate with a degree/ background in law (maybe environmental or health related law), with an interest in South Asia or another region of the Global South. Candidates must have a demonstrable commitment to research, a strong academic record, excellent writing and presentation skills, and a willingness to carry out independent fieldwork. It is not necessary for the candidate to have prior training in the hard sciences.
Research proposal
The project area is broadly defined, leaving scope for the applicant to develop their own specific research proposal as part of the application. The successful candidate will further develop their proposal in close consultation with the supervisory team.
Supervision
The primary discipline supervisor takes the lead responsibility for supervising the project. For further detail relating to supervision see the Guidance for Applicants (.docx) document.
Additional background information
The premise of this call is that sanitary waste management is a relatively understudied area across disciplines and rarely features in academic and policy debates on sustainability, health and waste governance. A significant quantum of academic research has been devoted to solid waste, plastics, and the transnational dumping of wastes; and more. More recently, advocacy around shifting towards a circular economy that must replace the ‘take, make, dispose’ model with the ‘reuse, repair, and recycle’ model, has gained prominence.
Rapid urbanisation and consumerism have been on an exponential rise in South Asian countries. This has generated large and often unsustainable volumes of waste. One of the most widely used methods of waste management in these countries, is landfilling . Owing to a lack of available land for landfilling/dumping in varied contexts, such as in agricultural areas that border growing urban and peri-urban spaces, hilly or mountainous terrains, or geographically unstable or flood-prone land, sanitary waste is often burnt openly, dumped in water bodies, or buried without adequate treatment. This leads to serious health and environmental risks for local resident and wider communities.
In any given local context, waste management and treatment involves a plethora of actors – government officials, private players who are in the business of waste management, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). With respect to sanitary waste, there are usually no dedicated rules that mandate extended producer’s responsibility (EPR), as they often do for other types of wastes such as plastics, e-wastes, or batteries. Therefore, there is no structured system of take-back, or even advocacy to move in this direction as has been seen with other categories of waste. In South Asia, wherein most local governments lack adequate resources to install and operate sanitary waste management units, several private waste organisations/businesses operate with limited or no regulatory oversight by the government. There is a need to take a more holistic view and engage with several intersecting issues including the responsibility of producers, government agencies, private actors, and consumers who are both contributors and victims of waste mismanagement. There is a need to identify different players in this landscape, including those upon which the primary mandate of waste management rests. A socio-legal mapping of actors and their respective roles can be carried out either in one selected jurisdiction or be carried out comparatively, analysing the position in two jurisdictions through a North-South or South-South comparison.
Such a study has the potential to build the foundation for future projects amongst researchers in the UK, South Asia and the Global South. This field of research is critically important in a world that is looking for pathways to sustainability. It is vital for Global North and South scholars to gain local perspectives from varied spaces where the socio-legal context of any environmental impact must be fully appreciated before solutions can be proposed.
How to Apply
Full details available at Sustainable Transitions Leverhulme Doctoral Training Programme.
Supervisory team references
- Lokhandwala, Z., (2022). Peasants’ Rights as New Human Rights: Promises and Concerns for Agrobiodiversity Conservation. Asian Journal of International Law. 12 (1), 105-120.
- Lokhandwala, Z., (2024). Agriculture, Food Systems, and the Environment. In: The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Natural Resources Law in India. Editors: Cullet, P., Bhullar, L. and Koonan, S., . Oxford University Press (OUP).
- Pine, A.C., Marco, A., Brooke, G.N. (2023) A computational approach to identify efficient RNA-cleaving 10 23 DNAzymes. NAR Genomics & Bioinformatics.5, 1.
- Tejaswini., Kiley, R., Pine, A.C. (In prep) Cervical cancer knowledge among members of the public and healthcare professionals in rural Bihar, India.
- Brooke, G.N, R. C. Culley, D. A. Leach, L. Latonen, E. E. L. Rees, M. A. Alkheilewi, A. C. Pine, F. F. Fioretti, C. S. Reader, S. M. Powell, V. Reebye, J. Waxman, T. Visakorpi, C. L. Bevan (2025). Disruption of androgen receptor-cofactor interactions by the RNA-binding protein FUS/TLS alters androgen signalling in prostate cancer. Oncogene –Pre-print.
