Thinking like a slag heap

A new socio-environmental history of the Martinet slag heap in Charleroi, Belgium, reveals how local citizens' stewardship of living soil since the 1970s embodies Aldo Leopold's 'land ethic,' offering a postextractivist model for the fossil crescent. This study combines fieldwork, interviews, and mapping to contrast extractivist mining logics with emerging citizen-led environmental practices, challenging Charleroi's industrial revival by advocating for long-term relational ontologies with soil ecosystems.

Grulois, G., Moritz, B., & Declève, M. (2026). Thinking like a slag heap. Journal of Delta Urbanism, (6). https://doi.org/10.59490/jdu.6.2025.8213