Carbon dioxide is a waste product of combusting fossil fuels, and its accumulation in the atmosphere presents a planetary hazard. Carbon dioxide is also managed and used as a resource. Emerging technologies like direct air capture present the opportunity to reclaim and re-use wasted carbon, and actors in industry and policy are increasingly understanding carbon capture, utilization and storage as a waste management process. What is the value, and the danger, of conceptualizing CO₂ as a waste to be managed? This paper looks at the historical evolution of solid and liquid waste regimes to draw lessons for the future evolution of a gaseous waste regime. It finds that social decisions to clean up solid and liquid waste were driven by both culture and industry. Views of recycling and sanitation did not evolve smoothly, with recycling falling in and out of favour, and sanitation experiencing conflict between public and private actors. An earlier attempt to revalue waste as part of a circular economy—the 1930s scientific and industrial field of chemurgy—failed to become a durable term and movement. These experiences hold important takeaways for negative emissions technologies and carbon removal policy: technocratic ideas about resource management may not take hold without a broader popular movement, as in the case of chemurgy, but value change and technology development can support each other, as in the case of wastewater infrastructure. Scientists and carbon removal policy advocates have an opportunity to contextualize CO₂ waste management within the struggles and goals of the larger circular economy project, and to focus simultaneously on both waste production and waste disposal.

二氧化碳是燃烧化石燃料的废物，其在大气中的积累会危害地球。二氧化碳也被管理并用作资源。诸如直接空气捕获之类的新兴技术为回收和再利用浪费的碳提供了机会，并且行业和政策参与者越来越多地将碳捕获，利用和存储作为废物管理过程来理解。CO ₂概念化的价值和危险是什么作为废物进行管理？本文着眼于固体和液体废物处置制度的历史演变，为气体废物处置制度的未来发展汲取教训。它发现，清理固体和液体废物的社会决策是由文化和工业共同驱动的。关于回收和卫生的观点发展不顺利，回收受到冷落和不利，而且卫生在公共和私人行为者之间发生冲突。1930年代化学工业的科学和工业领域，作为循环经济的一部分，对废物进行重新估价的早期尝试未能成为一个持久的术语和运动。这些经验对于负排放技术和碳清除政策具有重要意义：如果没有更广泛的普及运动（例如化学疗法，但是价值的变化和技术的发展可以互相支持，例如废水基础设施。科学家和碳清除政策的倡导者有机会将二氧化碳具体化₂在较大的循环经济项目的奋斗目标中进行废物管理，并同时关注废物生产和废物处置。