Accountability lost?: An environmental struggle over the economic feasibility of incineration

One of the first environmental struggles in Finland was the campaign of a local citizens' movement to close down the Kyläsaari incinerator in Helsinki. This campaign, taking place in the early 1980s, was a success. The course of this struggle, in relation to the governmental rationality of the waste management administration, is examined in this paper. The paper argues that the paternalist and cameralist mentality of the waste management authorities, who promoted the incineration alternative, was counterproductive. Shortcomings of the governmental rationality were especially recognizable in the accounting practices. The paper claims that a lack of accessibility, translatability and acceptability of accounts characterized the plans and calculations of the city's waste management administration. For this reason, the activists of the movement could challenge the waste management authorities also in the technical-economic domain.