| Abstract |
In effect since the 1970s, the AFNOR NF U44-051 standard governs the conditions for the marketing of compost produced from organic waste in France. According to this norm, since 2007, for each category of pollutants, thresholds must not be exceeded in order to prevent the risk of soil contamination. However, the role of this standard in the mechanisms for removing waste materials from waste status remains ambiguous. By concealing some of the properties of these materials, the standard ignores the uncertainties that weigh on the fate of these organic amendments in the soil. The article shows that, in this context where toxicological knowledge is in its infancy, and the "victim" of the situation has yet to be clearly identified, epistemic debates are rooted in the dynamics of fetishization-defetishization of knowledge. The absence of epidemiological data accentuates the authoritative effects of the norm, but also reveals original ways of fighting against this reductive knowledge. It brings into play alternative forms of toxicity evaluation (including sensory evaluation), and generates antagonistic moral positions on the setting of threshold values. |
