Author Archives: Robin Nagle

One of the best ever

Angelo Bruno was a sanitation worker with New York City’s Department of Sanitation for 31 years. He retired this past spring. He and his partner, Eddie Nieves, did a StoryCorps interview recently; this excellent excerpt was broadcast yesterday on NPR. I’m lucky enough to know both of them. Angelo was proud of his work and […]
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Collecting? or Hoarding?

    Collections of Nothing, a book by William Davies King, is part memoir, part philosophical rumination about the meaning of collecting. King looks at the legacy of a life spent amassing…junk? random bits of debris? worthless trash? and wonders what it says about himself as an individual and about humanness more generally. Plenty of […]
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“Waste Land”

It’s a film by Lucy Walker, who chronicled the work of Braziian artist Vic Muniz as he collaborated with “catadores,” or scavengers, on a landfill in Rio de Janeiro. “Waste Land” won’t have national release until October, but it deserves wide attention.

Around the world…

Waste and its permutations have attracted observers of many stripes — scholars, activists, artists, and more. This list is worth exploring to learn about some of the variety and color that our odd and world-wide habit of wasting has inspired.

Whither our e-dross?

I write this on a computer. When the computer is no longer in my life, where will it go? Without more rigorous e-waste recycling laws in the United States, it could find its way to this community in Ghana, profiled in a recent New York Times photo essay. The description that previews the photos mentions […]
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