CFP: Ethics and Transboundary Waste Movements (3/20/16)
This session invites papers exploring ethical considerations of transboundary waste movement.
Author: Max Liboiron
Municipal versus Industrial Waste: Questioning the 3-97 ratio
We do not have an idea of the quantity of non-household solid waste produced in North America. When we do have ideas of (sub)quantities, we do not have…
How to do a household waste audit–and why
A waste audit is an analysis of a localized waste stream from your building, household, classroom, town or business. It can identify what types of waste that local…
Masters position in social & natural sciences of pollution in Newfoundland
The Department of Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland is looking to fill a fully funded Masters position working at the intersection of social and natural sciences on…
Article Alert! Elevent recent publications in discard studies
The following ten articles and one book are recent publications from diverse disciplines, but they all relate to the study of waste, pollution, and externalities. Cooper, D. R.,…
CFP: Looking at Junk
We will examine the limits of knowledge in a disposable world and how that shapes us as graduate students and people.
New Book Coming Soon: Waste Away: Working and Living with a North American Landfill
In Waste Away, Joshua O. Reno reveals how North Americans have been shaped by their preferred means of disposal: sanitary landfill.
Building DIY citizen science technology to see invisible marine plastics
We’ve been working on the problem of making tiny, often invisible marine plastics visible through do-it-yourself (DIY) technologies. You can build your own and investigate your local environment.
PLAN’s Plastic-Free Campus Manual
The Plastic Free Campus Manual includes not only consumer alternatives to disposable plastics, but more importantly, organizing advice on running campaigns, working with administration, facilitating c…
Article Alert! Legitimating the environmental injustices of war: toxic exposures and media silence in Iraq and Afghanistan
Along with Shiloh Krupar’s Hot Spotter’s Report: Military Fables of Toxic Waste, Bond’s article adds to a growing literature on the environmental effects of military discard practices.
Article Alert! 11 recent articles in discard studies
A table of contents for recent publications in the field of discard studies
A Circular Economy? Disruptive Innovation Festival
What is the circular economy, exactly? Is it capitalism with better accounting? Is it about scaling up recycling and reuse? Is it about consuming less, and producing less,…
Roundtable reviews of “Banned: A History of Pesticides and the Science of Toxicology”
If you’re interested in the history of pesticides and toxicology, Banned provides a detail-oriented, close reading of key 20th century experiments, legislative hearings, events, and texts to investiga…
The Ocean Conservatory’s Call for Mass Incineration in Asia: Disposability for Profit, Fantasies of Containment, & Colonialism
The Ocean Conservatory would like to burn 80% of the waste in coastal Asia with US-made incinerators. According to a wide range of experts and grassroots organizations from…
The Power Behind Disposability: Why New York City’s ban on polystyrene was vilified, sued, and reversed
On July 1 New York City banned disposable Styrofoam containers. First they were sued over the decision, and last week the ban was overturned. What is the big…
Special Issue on Discards, Diverse Economies, and Degrowth
Why do new economic imaginaries need to take up waste as a central issue? What do novel, non-capitalist economies mean for concepts and materialities of waste?
LA’s Shade Balls: The ecological costs of plastics in water
Putting 20,000 black plastic balls in water after people have been warned against throwing plastic into waterways has sparked a number of questions. Our plastic expert talks about…
Article Alert! Attuning to the Chemosphere: Domestic Formaldehyde, Bodily Reasoning, and the Chemical Sublime
“”During the first hour spent in houses with suspected indoor air-quality issues, I would slowly develop an ache in the back of my eyes, which would with time…
Funded MA & PhD positions in Participatory Citizen Science, Marine Plastics, and Action-based Research
We are spearheading an interdisciplinary project that looks at research methodologies and ethics in a permanently polluted world. We will be focusing on developing methodologies for participatory cit…
Plastic Marine Smog and Horizontal Smoke Stacks: Representations of Pollution as Knowledge
Representations are the basis of human knowledge both in terms of how knowledge is made as well as how it is reproduced and circulated. They are the way…
How the Ocean Cleanup Array Fundamentally Misunderstands Marine Plastics and Causes Harm
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The Ocean Cleanup array, designed to clean plastics from the ocean like a baleen whale, is one of these…