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SHA 2023 (Lisbon) Presentation: Reimagining the West Lothian oil shale industry

Presentation: Reimagining the West Lothian oil shale industry

Albyn Bing, Broxburn, West Lothian is seen reflected in a long puddle in this portrait image, surrounded by bare silver birch trees. The lower slopes of the bing can be seen in the backgorund, but the puddle shows an inverted reflection of the peak of the bing in vivid orange-red and a bright blue sky.
Albyn Bing, Broxburn, West Lothian.
J. Gardner, CC-BY-NC 4.0

In January 2023 I will be presenting some of the results of my work with oil Shale bings (waste heaps) in West Lothian at the Society for Historical Archaeology conference in Lisbon, Portugal. This is in a session entitled ‘Post-medieval Archaeology and Pollution’ organised by Katy Whitaker (University of Reading).

Paper Abstract

In this paper I explore changing valuations of oil shale waste – blaes – in West Lothian, Scotland. Around 150 million cubic metres of blaes remain here in vast heaps called bings – the remnants of a short-lived but globally significant oil industry, active between 1851 and 1962. 

While these heaps are relatively nontoxic, they are material witnesses to the dirty and wasteful history of the oil industry.  Nonetheless, as discard studies scholars have demonstrated, definitions of what waste actually ‘is’ are far from fixed (Reno 2018).

In this sense, the blaes and bings also present other opportunities: providing sites of leisure, habitats, and raw material for construction. By examining the origins and shifting understandings of this material over the last century, I show that the heritage of hydrocarbon exploitation may yet prove valuable as we face an ever more polluted planet.

Reno, Josh. 2018. “What Is Waste?” Worldwide Waste: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 1(1), 1–10. http://doi.org/10.5334/wwwj.9 

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