Plastic is a persistent problem in westernised cities. Yet it is also a key mediator, affording and assisting the everyday. In small apartments, it supports daily life by assisting with waste management, storage, and provisioning of affordable ornaments and furniture. Plastic, in this context, is a mundane and utilitarian substrate to apartment life, as well as being a problematic potential pollutant. Recognising the diverse contributions to research on high-density living, this paper draws on vertical urbanism and relational ideas of home. It explores the socio-material entanglements of plastic in apartments through household interviews across Melbourne, London, Barcelona, and Perth. The research reveals ways in which plastic mediates the material inequalities of high-rise living, typified by entanglements of space constraint, transience, and waste management. The contribution is twofold. Theoretically, our work suggests a direction for socio-materialities research in reframing ideas of home as a static, physical site, to one that is more contingent materially and spatially. As various households adapt and make do, their refuges in the sky are being reconfigured physically and symbolically by and through plastic. Relational approaches can help to reveal the mundane but critical entanglements of plastic and everyday life in apartments. Second, empirically, we show that mundane infrastructures matter; they shape the spaces and places of plastic and apartment inequalities. Thus, policy interventions that target household behaviours can only have a marginal impact on plastic consumption where uneven infrastructures remain. Moreover, they may direct attention away from where change might be more promising, such as wider social rules and meanings around plastic, and the materialities of building design/management for waste infrastructures both inside and outside the apartment.

中文翻译：

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高层塑料：公寓中的社会物质纠缠

塑料是西方城市的一个长期问题。然而，它也是一个关键的调解者，提供和协助日常生活。在小型公寓中，它通过协助废物管理、储存以及提供负担得起的装饰品和家具来支持日常生活。在这种情况下，塑料是公寓生活的一种平凡而实用的基质，也是一种有问题的潜在污染物。认识到对高密度居住研究的不同贡献，本文借鉴了垂直都市主义和家庭的关系理念。它通过墨尔本、伦敦、巴塞罗那和珀斯的家庭访谈，探索公寓中塑料的社会物质纠缠。该研究揭示了塑料调解高层生活物质不平等的方式，以空间限制、短暂性、和废物管理。贡献是双重的。从理论上讲，我们的工作为社会物质性研究提出了一个方向，将家的概念重新定义为一个静态的物理场所，使其在物质和空间上更具偶然性。随着各种家庭的适应和凑合，他们在空中的避难所正在通过塑料进行物理和象征性的重新配置。关系方法有助于揭示塑料制品与公寓日常生活之间平凡但至关重要的纠缠。其次，根据经验，我们表明平凡的基础设施很重要；它们塑造了塑料和公寓不平等的空间和场所。因此，针对家庭行为的政策干预只能对基础设施不均衡的塑料消费产生边际影响。而且，