Waste and Recycling in Cold War Eastern Europe
This short study analyzes the professional and political discussions of post-industrial and post-consumer waste, discards and recycling in state-socialist Hungary and connects …
On Wishcycling
Wishcycling is the process of placing discards into the recycling bin even when there’s little to no chance for their recovery. The …
Agbogbloshie: Dumping no more
Agbogbloshie is a part of an emergent globalised scrap economy that links peripheral markets to global metal flows. In this post, Dagna …
Myths of the Circular Economy
Discard studies spoke with three leading waste researchers about the biggest myths of the circular economy.
Does recycling actually conserve or preserve things?
By Samantha MacBride There are a series of assumptions behind the familiar assertion that recycling saves resources and energy, and in so …
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 …
Why Is This Trash Can Yelling at Me? Big Bellies and Clean Green Gentrification
“Pssst. There’s something really special happening here. I’m collecting five times more trash than the other guys and using solar energy 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 …
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 …
Eco Messe
Ökologie und Mode – passt das überhaupt zusammen? Teil 2 Eine wirkliche Alternative zu der üblichen Wegwerfmode, ein schöner Gedanke. Die Arbeitsbedingungen …
Eco-Fashion
Ökologie und Mode – passt das überhaupt zusammen? Teil 1 Ökologisch und fair produzierte Mode – das Thema der Eco-Fashion-Messe während der …
Recycling Reconsidered: A must-read text for discard studies
If I could only recommend one text in discard studies, it would be Recycling Reconsidered by Samantha MacBride (2011, MIT Press).
Special Issue on the Circular Economy in Journal of Industrial Ecology
“Viewed as a concept by some, a framework by others, the CE is an alternative to a traditional take-make-dispose linear economy. A …
Electronics Reuse and Recycling in Peru: A Photographic exploration
A walk down this little street in Peru’s capital provides a glimpse into an understated network that quietly plays a critical role …
An Open Letter to My Children
Dear Nathaniel and Hannah, I am sorry that my generation has failed you. We have bequeathed you a world that has too many problems, …
Occasional Paper 6: Destructivistas
Joel Cahen (2012, revised 2016) With our present day awareness, the arts as we have known them up to now appear to …
The Politics of Recycling vs. Reusing
Calling reuse “recycling” a common and seemingly simple mistake, yet it is extremely important to differentiate between the two for political and …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …