Hope and mourning in the Anthropocene
These experiences resonate strongly with the concept of “solastagia,” described both as a form of homesickness while still in place, and as a type of grief over the…
Author: guestauth0r
Science with heart
Conservation biologist Alex Bond on dealing with pollution, harm, and suffering as a scientist.
The Dirt
To keep practitioners up-to-date, Discard Studies publishes The Dirt, a monthly compilation of recent publications, positions, opportunities, and calls for proposals in the field. Here is The Dirt…
Nuclear State, Nuclear Waste
Nuclear State, Nuclear Waste: Emily Simmonds on Canada as a nuclear nation & ongoing colonialism through uranium mining.
What the world misses about recycling
Recycling was never just a solution to a disposal crisis, and it did not uniformly reduce total waste management costs. Rather, it addresses a range of other concerns…
Consider the Vulture: An Ethical Approach to Roadkill
By Jonathan L. Clark Roadkill is disgusting. Many people just want it removed from the roads as quickly as possible, and they don’t care where it goes. In…
A Bibliography on Demolition Waste and Deconstruction
By Susan Ross Construction, renovation, and demolition (CR&D) waste can represent from 30 to 50% of municipal solid waste (Yeheyis et al, 2013). Yet this area of discard…
Keyword: Deconstruction Waste (Building)
By Susan Ross Building deconstruction refers to the careful taking apart of a building to salvage its reusable materials and components. These are either stored on site for…
These chemicals are bad for babies and whales: Why haven’t they been banned in Canada?
Canadian regulators are all over the map with respect to flame retardants. On PBDEs, Canada infamously refused to take meaningful regulatory action. The government found most PBDEs to…
Resources for Observing and Understanding America Recycles Day
Wednesday is America Recycles Day. It’s a day that reveals the complex history of industry, consumer, and social attitudes towards the environment.
Moving the Circular Economy Beyond Alchemy
This review of a special issue of the Journal of Industrial Ecology titled, “Exploring the Circular Economy” is a virtual tour of circular economy definitions and current directions.…
Urban noise pollution is worst in poor and minority neighborhoods and segregated cities
Neighborhoods with median annual incomes below US$25,000 were nearly 2 decibels louder than neighborhoods with incomes above $100,000 per year. And nationwide, communities with 75 percent black reside…
Examining Waste as an Economic Externality
In an economic sense, it is usually municipal and state governments that account for the cost of damage waste causes to local environments when deciding how to deal…
In space, this is the age of reusability
It might seem that the obvious solution is to reuse rockets. The idea of Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLVs) isn’t new, but reusing rockets has proven tricky in the…
Benzene, PCBs, and industrial chemistry: A narrative bibliography
How the Benzene Tree Polluted the World in The Atlantic by Rebecca Altman, is a narrative exploration of the rise of organic chemistry, and the industrialization of the branch of chemistry…
CFP: Pervasive Powers: Corporate Authority in the Shaping of Public Policy (Paris)
This conference is based on the idea that, not only has this power varied among industries, countries and different periods, but also that the way in which it…
How subversive artists made thrift shopping cool
Over the past 100 years, visual artists probably deserve the most credit for thrift shopping’s place in the cultural milieu.
Doctoral researcher in “Plastics – Publics – Politics” (Munich)
The Professorship of Science & Technology Policy (Prof. Dr. Ruth Müller), based at the Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS) and affiliated with the School of Life…
For a true war on waste, the fashion industry must spend more on research
These are admirable initiatives, but they only reduce wastage or delay garments from ending up in landfill. They do not address the fact that the scale of fast…
Virtual Waste: Flowing from a data center near you
Thinking with virtual data demonstrates that reduction of material waste alone does not mean a reduction of an overall environmental footprint on this planet.
Review of Richard S. Newman’s “Love Canal: A Toxic History from Colonial Times to the Present”
Newman’s activists press for environmental change imbedded with critiques of capitalism and industrialization, racial injustice, and its global implications. This view distorts the complexity of histo…
CFP: Ethnographic Practices and the Temporality of Evidence (CAS 2018, Cuba)
Call for Papers Ethnographic Practices and the Temporality of Evidence CASCA-CUBA: Canadian Anthropology Society Annual Meeting 16-20 May, 2018 Universidad de Oriente – Santiago de Cuba, Cuba Panel Or…
The forgotten story of how a toxic spill and a book launched Britain’s environmental movement
When in 1963 some farm animals in the parish of Smarden in Kent became sick and died, suspicions fell on a nearby pesticide factory run by a division…
Students for Zero Waste Conference, 2017 (Philadelphia)
Join The Post-Landfill Action Network at the Students for Zero Waste Conference on November 3rd-4th, 2017, in Philadelphia, PA!