The Dirt

Discard Studies is an interdisciplinary field of research that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. To keep practitioners up to date, Discard Studies publishes The Dirt, a monthly compilation of recent publications, opportunities, and calls for proposals in the field. Here […]
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The Dirt

Discard Studies is an interdisciplinary field of research that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. 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. […]
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Book Review Essay: The Waste of the World

Writing almost 20 years ago, Nicky Gregson and her research partners claimed that “…(W)aste’s capacity as a theoretical vehicle is immense; like food it is good to think with and through” (Gregson et al., 2005, page 2). In her new book, The Waste of the World, Gregson’s starting point has shifted. Waste remains central, but […]
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Reading Lists: Residential Schools and Canadian Colonialism

Content warning: this article covers topics of colonialism and genocide in Canada. In early June of 2021 news reports emerged about the remains of Indigenous children buried in unmarked graves on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. A couple of weeks later, 751 more children’s graves were counted at Marieval Indian Residential School […]
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The Dirt

The Dirt is a monthly compilation of recent publications, positions, opportunities, and calls for proposals in the field. Here is The Dirt for June, 2021.

Miss Tampon Liberty

In the 1980s, when menstruation was generally considered taboo, artist Jay Critchley made art out of discarded plastic tampon applicators washed up and collected on local beaches. With no idea what the items were used for, Critchley could not have known that his curiosity would lead to a decades-long quest to understand and improve issues surrounding menstrual product waste.

The Dirt

Discard Studies is a young field of research that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. 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 […]
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Reading Lists: Waste Colonialism and Palestine

When there’s conflict, academics and teachers will often put together a reading list or syllabus to show the breadth and depth of knowledge on a topic that is catching broad public attention. These reading lists are designed to add context, nuance, and history to public discussions (e.g. The Standing Rock Syllabus (2016); The Environmental Data […]
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A moral politics of blame

Modern municipal waste disposal is not limited to removal of garbage, but often involves a strategic churning out of unwanted people, and extreme events such as dump fires reflect the social precariousness of marginalised communities like those of waste-pickers.

The Dirt

Discard Studies publishes The Dirt, a monthly compilation of recent publications, positions, opportunities, and calls for proposals in the field of discard studies. Here is The Dirt for April 2021.

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 these discourses with the changing cultures of waste, discards, and recycling around the globe.

The Dirt

Discard Studies is a young field of research that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. 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 […]
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Taboos around menstruation are leading to a growing environmental crisis in India

If the disposability of menstrual products is not prioritised as much as their accessibility, India could be dealing with mountains of discarded waste products in less than 50 years.

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 term entered common use over the last six or so years. But its usage and meaning have changed over time.

The Dirt

New articles, positions, special issues and calls for papers related to Discard Studies for January 2021.

Firsting in Research

Firsting in research, then, is not about being first to a place, first to know something, first to discover something. It is a proclamation of power to make property in someone’s home, to put your own name on otherwise shared or common knowledge. It’s a proclamation of the privilege to not see others, cite others, or acknowledge others.

COVID-19 measures and industrial workplaces

The obsession that media has had with small businesses has hidden the most aggressive public health measures are missing the biggest driver of the pandemic: large industrial workplaces.

Top 10 Discard Studies articles of 2020

It’s time for reminiscing! And what better topic to think back on than a year’s worth of trashy insights? Here are the top ten posts from Discard Studies in 2020 as determined by our readers!

The Dirt

The Dirt is a monthly compilation of recent publications, positions, opportunities, and calls for proposals in the field of discard studies. Here is The Dirt for December 2020.

Nigeria’s COVID-19 waste management policy should include the informal sector

Though Nigeria approved a national solid waste management policy earlier this year, it does not provide a plan to include the large informal sector. An inclusive policy is one recognising and involving informal waste workers in solid waste management while also yielding improvements in their lives and waste management performance.

The Dirt

The Dirt is a monthly compilation of recent publications, positions, opportunities, and calls for proposals in the field of discard studies. Here is The Dirt for November 2020.

How to Twitter Conference (#Discard2020)

In November 2020, Discard Studies held our first ever Twitter Conference. Here’s how it worked! #TwitterConference

Discard Studies Twitter Conference Schedule

The Discard Studies Twitter Conference is going live on November 16th and 17th! Here is the schedule. #Discard2020

The Dirt

The Dirt is a monthly compilation of recent publications, positions, opportunities, and calls for proposals in the field of discard studies. Here is The Dirt for October 2020.

There’s no such thing as “We”

Put simply, evoking the universal “we” is a way to discard differences and maintain business as usual.

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 for March-September 2020.

Roundup: Waste & COVID-19

What do we know about the relationships between waste and COVID-19? Some figures and insights are emerging, but given that we’re in the thick of the pandemic and the expressions of a global pandemic will still vary greatly by region, type of waste, and change over time, any knowledge will be both partial and early. […]
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CFP: Discard Studies Twitter Conference!

Discard Studies is throwing a Twitter conference! Twitter conferences are accessible, create a permanent record of scholarship, support conversations with diverse audiences, and best of all, the presentations are short and planned in advance. Authors present their papers as threaded tweets, and audiences from around the world can read and comment from the comfort of […]
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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 Rams argues for the need to pay closer attention to the flow of recuperated metals out of Agbogbloshie.

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 for February 2020.

A Bibliography of Trash Animals

Gulls. Pigeons. Rats. Lice. These ‘trash animals’ live alongside waste, filth, ruination and decay. Attitudes, behaviour and infrastructure aimed at dealing with ‘trash animals’ tell us a lot about systems of discarding. The following is a bibliography of ‘trash animals’ research.

The Dirt

Discard studies is an emerging field that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. 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 for December […]
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Sending surplus food to charity is not the way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

While giving food that would otherwise go to landfill to hungry people may be a convenient part of a solution to reduce greenhouse gases, it will do little to ensure the well-being of the four million Canadians who are food insecure.

Top Discard Studies Clicks of 2019

We decided to do something new this year at Discard Studies: we tracked the links our readers followed. With ‘The Dirt” coming out monthly with it’s hundreds of links to new articles, calls for papers, and opportunities, we wanted to see how readers were directing their attention and voting with their mouses. Mice? Never sure […]
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Top Discard Studies posts of 2019

It’s time for reminiscing! And what better topic to think back on than a year’s worth of trashy insights? Here are the top ten posts from Discard Studies in 2019 as determined by our viewers! Here’s what you all read the most: #10: The Tragedy of the Tragedy of the commons By Matto Mildenberger, June 2019 […]
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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 for November 2019.

Myths of the Circular Economy

Discard studies spoke with three leading waste researchers about the biggest myths of the circular economy.

Placing discard studies in Australia

Australian discard studies scholars Catherine Phillips, David Boarder Giles, and Gay Hawkins discuss intellectual traditions, settler colonialism, and the future of the field.

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 for August 2019.

The power (& disempowerment) of Menstrual Hygiene Management

Development initiatives focused on menstrual health and sanitary pads in Southern countries actually disempower women as knowers and innovators.

The Dirt

Discard studies is an emerging field that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. 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 […]
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No insides on the outsides

“The main goal and mission of a content moderator is to clean up the dirt.” — unnamed content moderator in The Cleaners (00:06:20). All systems must rid themselves of things. If they don’t discard, those systems face existential threats to their continuation. This is a fundamental insight of anthropologist Mary Douglas’s work and a core […]
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Waste is not “matter out of place”

Douglas’ theory of matter out of place is about power. Something in the wrong spot, something poisonous, is not matter out of place. Unless it threatens power.

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 for August 2019.

PSA: Beware of Easy Narratives

This is a Twitter essay by Josh Lepawsky (@rubbishmaker) about one of many recent examples of reporting on the e-waste trade. Many of the problems specific to the article considered here can be found in a wide variety of reportage about the international waste trade more generally.

The Dirt

The Dirt, a monthly compilation of recent publications, positions, opportunities, and calls for proposals in research related to waste and wasting.

The Tragedy of the Tragedy of the commons

A Twitter essay by Matto Mildenberger (@mmildenberger)   Something I’ve been meaning to say about The Tragedy of the Commons. Bear with me for a small thread on why our embrace of Hardin is a stain on environmentalism: we’ve let a flawed metaphor by a racist ecologist define environmental thinking for a half century. Hardin’s […]
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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 for June 2019.

Rethinking Remediation

Mining is, as some in the industry quip, primarily a waste management industry.

Yes, Genocide (a primer on the term) #MMIWG

For Raphael Lemkin, who invented the term, genocide was the effort to destroy a group as a group. #MMIWG

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 for May 2019.

Disposability

by Gay Hawkins ‘Disposable’ usually describes minor ephemeral things from take-away coffee cups to plastic bags. More recently, it has been applied to furniture, fashion, technologies and even people. But what does it mean? The phrase ‘easy come, easy go’ captures many of the popular assumptions about disposability. Disposable items are immediately available and appear […]
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Adam Minter: In the flow of things

Discard Studies interviews writer Adam Minter, author of ‘Junkyard Planet’ and journalist for Bloomberg about his next book, ‘Secondhand’

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 for April 2019.

Queering chemicals (EDCs): A bibliography

Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) are a class of environmental toxicants that may impact sex, gender, and sexuality. Here is our bibliography on queering EDCs.

Climate Change Ain’t the First Existential Threat

A Twitter essay by Mary Annaïse Heglar: Sorry, Y’all, but Climate Change Ain’t the First Existential Threat

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 for March 2019.

Mapping USA electronics manufacturing pollution

The US ‘tech sector’ has been a major source of toxicant releases. These interactive maps show the chemical legacy of electronic manufacturing in the US.

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 for February 2019.

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 doing, protects the environment. These assumptions are in the motto, “recycling saves trees.” With recycling  – one assumes – used materials stand in for raw materials. This way, recycled content cuts down on […]
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Not all marine fish eat plastics

The Gulf Stream, which curves along the southern shore of Newfoundland, is saturated with plastics. Fish that feed from the surface waters, where plastics tend to accumulate, are in an ideal position to ingest plastics. But what about the bigger fish that eat these fish, especially when we eat those predators? In 2016, our laboratory […]
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When your research is attacked

Attacks on research have become routinized and institutionalized. Here is our step-by-step guide on what to do if you and your research are attacked.

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 for January 2019.

Top Discard Studies articles in 2018

What are the most frequently read articles on Discard Studies? You might be surprised by #1!

The Dirt

#Discardstudies takes waste and wasting as its topic of study. To keep practitioners up-to-date, we publish The Dirt, a monthly compilation of recent publications, positions, opportunities, and calls for proposals in the field.

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 loss of a healthy place or a thriving ecosystem.

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 for November 2018.

Nuclear State, Nuclear Waste

Nuclear State, Nuclear Waste: Emily Simmonds on Canada as a nuclear nation & ongoing colonialism through uranium mining.

Waste colonialism

Waste colonialism refers to how waste and pollution are part of the domination of one group in their homeland by another group. The concept has been gaining traction since the 1990s to explain patterns of power in wasting and pollution.

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 which are equally valid but nearly impossible to quantify.

Against Risk Perception

The deficit model frames public controversies about contamination as a lack of scientific understanding or trust in government institutions. People are seen as deficient in knowledge about an issue, erasing local, community, and personal expertise.

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.

The what and the why of Discard Studies

We tend to think that we are familiar with waste because we deal with it every day. Yet, this is not the case–most aspects of waste are entirely hidden from view and understanding.

Consider the Vulture: An Ethical Approach to Roadkill

After riding along with Bill that day, I started wondering about the morality of turning dead deer into “zoological garbage.”[3] If how we treat the dead influences how we treat the living, then the most obvious question is whether this is a respectful way to treat the dead.

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 studies seems chronically understudied. Susan Ross, Assistant Professor at Carleton University, Canada, provides an extended bibliography on the topic, with a focus on one aspect of demolition […]
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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 short-term integration in a new design, or removed to a salvage yard for use at a later date. Whereas prevailing mechanical demolition creates mounds of unsorted debris […]
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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 be toxic substances in 2006, but it declined to ban or restrict them in consumer products in 2008 or in 2016.

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. The authors discuss and derive new definitions of “circularity.” They cover fundamental determinants of material lifespan, such as economic demand, thermodynamics, product design, and durability.

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 residents had median nighttime noise levels of 46.3 decibels – 4 decibels louder than communities with no black residents. A 10-decibel increase represents a doubling in loudness of a sound, so these are big differences.

Article Alert! New Texts in Discard Studies (October 2017)

Since critical discard studies doesn’t (yet!) have its own journal, conference, or department, Discard Studies publishes a regular table of contents alerts for articles, reports, and books in the field. If you are interested in becoming an editor for non-English article alerts on Discard Studies, or know of a recent article for the next article […]
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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 with waste, but this cost is not already part of the price of goods or services that produce waste. Economists define this problem as a negative externality.

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 past.

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 based on the benzene ring. The piece focuses on the geopolitical forces shaping the production and global distribution of PCBs, a class of industrial chemicals that, though […]
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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 is wielded has evolved over time.

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 Sciences, Technical University of Munich, announces an *open position for a doctoral researcher in Science & Technology Studies (STS) *(TV-L E13, 65%, 3 years, fixed term) as […]
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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 fashion is so massive it can easily eclipse other sustainability initiatives.

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.

Pollution is Colonialism

Colonialism in Canada is an ongoing structure whereby settler society and government assert sovereignty over lands already occupied by Indigenous peoples.

New articles in Discard Studies (July/August)

Since critical discard studies doesn’t (yet!) have its own journal, conference, or department, Discard Studies publishes a regular table of contents alerts for articles, reports, and books in the field. If you are interested in becoming an editor for non-English article alerts on Discard Studies, or know of a recent article for the next article […]
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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 Organizer: Maxime Polleri, York University  Following the ongoing concerns surrounding questions of scientific knowledge and the role of anthropology in accessing, rationalizing, and circulating data, (Kirksey 2009; Fortun […]
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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!

How we discovered pollution-poisoned crustaceans in the Mariana Trench

A trench amphipod, Hirondellea gigas, from the deepest place on Earth: Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench (10,890m). Alan Jamieson, Newcastle University, Author provided Alan Jamieson, Newcastle University Even animals from the deepest places on Earth have accumulated pollutants made by humans. That’s the unfortunate finding of a new study by myself with colleagues from […]
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CfP: Hazardous Time-Scapes: How to Make Sense of Toxic Landscapes from Multiple Timed, Spaced, and Embodied Perspectives?

The workshop Hazardous Time-Scapes seeks to understand human-environment relationships through the lens of multiple overlapping time, space, and body regimes as they have (and continue to) play out in toxic landscapes.

Your city could be exporting deadly air pollution – here’s why

Goods and services produced in one region for use by another region are responsible for 22% (762,400) of air pollution-related deaths worldwide.

Cleaning up toxic sites shouldn’t clear out the neighbors

Notions of “sustainability” and “urban greening” ought to include values of justice and equity. Otherwise, important projects like the Blue Greenway will build sustainable waterfronts for the urban elite, rather than spreading the environmental benefits of toxic cleanup to the many.

CPF: Shifting Baselines, Altered Horizons: Politics, Practice, and Knowledge in Environmental Science and Policy

Workshop – Call for Papers  Shifting Baselines, Altered Horizons: Politics, Practice, and Knowledge in Environmental Science and Policy  Max Planck Institute for the History of Science  (MPIWG) Berlin, Germany – 21-22 June 2018 Convenors: Wilko Graf von Hardenberg (MPIWG, Germany), Thomas Lekan, (University of South Carolina, USA), Sebastián Ureta, (Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Chile)   Description […]
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We can’t recycle our way to ‘zero waste’

Why is recycling low on the waste hierarchy?

Pristine paradise to rubbish dump: the same Pacific island, 23 years apart

Remember, this is not waste that was dumped directly by human hands. It was washed here on ocean currents, meaning that this is not just about one beach – it shows how much the pollution problem has grown in the entire ocean system in little more than two decades.

Bibliography on critical approaches to toxics and toxicity

Toxicity, toxins, and toxicants are areas of critical concern because controversies over what they mean, how they act, how they come into being and where, and what counts as evidence have high stake ramifications. These texts offer critical insights into these processes:

Article Alert! New texts in discard studies (May & June 2017)

Since critical discard studies doesn’t (yet!) have its own journal, conference, or department, Discard Studies publishes a regular table of contents alerts for articles, reports, and books in the field. If you are interested in becoming an editor for non-English article alerts on Discard Studies, or know of a recent article for the next article alert, please […]
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Community Responses to Toxic Hazards: A Reading List

A reading list of the David and Goliath story of communities versus industries, governments, and polluting infrastructures.

On (not) seeing artificial light at night: Light pollution or lighting poverty?

By Dr. Sara B. Pritchard Department of Science & Technology Studies, Cornell University So it began. This was the image that sparked my interest in light pollution and light-pollution science (Figure 1). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration released new images of Earth at night, including this one, on December 5, 2012, at the annual meeting […]
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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).

“Viewed as a concept by some, a framework by others, the CE is an alternative to a traditional take-make-dispose linear economy. A CE aims to keep products, components, and materials at their highest utility and value at all times. The value is maintained or extracted though extension of product lifetimes by reuse, refurbishment, and remanufacturing as well as closing of resource cycles—through recycling and related strategies.”

Powerful supermarkets push the cost of food waste onto suppliers, charities

Our research into the issue of corporate social responsibility and wastage of fresh fruit and vegetables has identified a number of tensions and contradictions, despite leading Australian supermarkets’ zero food waste targets.

Special Issue Alert! Geosocial Formations and the Anthropocene in Theory, Culture & Society

This special issue attempts to open up the categories of social thought to a deeper understanding of earth processes.

CFP: Suspensions: Atmospherics of the Anthropocene (deadline May 26)

This panel aims at expanding the theoretical scope on the Anthropocene by
attuning to air, breathe, volatility, atmospheres and suspension as modes of
attending to the more-than-solid ecologies of the Anthropocene. We ask: what
temporalities, phenomenologies, embodiments, and politics does the
Anthropocene invoke when thought in aerial, eolic, respiratory or
atmospheric terms?

The Dirt

Discard Studies is an interdisciplinary field of research that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. 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. […]
Read More »

The Dirt

Discard Studies is an interdisciplinary field of research that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. 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. […]
Read More »

The Dirt

atu Discard Studies is an interdisciplinary field of research that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. 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 […]
Read More »

The Dirt

Discard Studies is an interdisciplinary field of research that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. 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. […]
Read More »

The Dirt

Discard Studies is an interdisciplinary field of research that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. 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. […]
Read More »

The Dirt

Discard Studies is an interdisciplinary field of research that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. 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. […]
Read More »

The Dirt

  Discard Studies is an interdisciplinary field of research that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. 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 […]
Read More »