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Municipal solid waste management (MSWM) and politics are common themes in environmental justice. However, insights garnered from the experience of the global north cannot be applied directly to the global south since local processes shape unique landscapes of waste. To this end, my fieldwork in Oaxaca de Juarez, a rapidly urbanizing city in southern Mexico, concentrates on the history and politics of MSWM in the area. Here, the livelihood struggles of local neighborhoods are imbricated with the management of the existing official municipal dump. I argue that it is the marginality of these neighborhoods, both physical and social, that makes it possible for them to block the flow of municipal trash and so reveal it to visitors, residents, and politicians. This case presents a reworking of traditional concepts of environmental justice by examining the contradictory processes of abjection and political activism particular to the global south. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]