Category Archives: Consumption

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 in reducing the environmental impacts of our global production and consumption patterns of electronic devices.

An Introduction to Hoarding

One the one hand, hoarding is framed as a response to material deprivation. On the other, it is understood to result from the excesses of the late capitalist mode of production.

Information Salvage

These are the lessons we have learned in efforts to salvage neglected information in the form of narrative fragments salvaged from the waste stream. Our working laboratory is a comprehensive community waste reduction centre.

Victory at Standing Rock reflects a failure of US energy and climate policy

Stopping the pipeline in one spot, after all, won’t stop oil altogether. Climate change, however, is a threat most of all to Indigenous peoples around the world.

Dumping Milk from the Treadmill of Production

Over 43 million gallons of milk has been dumped into manure pits and fields the first eight months of 2016. There is too much of it. Yet milk is only the most recent commodity to become waste in an economic system that depends on waste. The Treadmill of Production refers to the processes by which industrial systems achieve consistent growth, and waste plays a central role.

Modular electronic products and waste

Modularly upgradable product designs have been advocated to offer environmental and economic advantages; however, they are not commonly used in the consumer electronics industry.

A Brief History of Anti-Capitalism, Pulled from a Dumpster

By Alex V. Barnard “Seeing all the waste exposes very clearly the priorities in our society, that making a profit is more important than feeding people, than preserving the environment, than making use of resources, than honoring peoples’ time, labor, love, and effort. What we see with waste is that once something cannot make money, it […]
Read More »

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 environmental reasons.

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 generates, and how much. How do you conduct an audit? What can you learn from one?

Piping as poison: the Flint water crisis and America’s toxic infrastructure

Over the past few decades, we have met with much success in curbing some of Americans’ exposure to lead. Yet they have struggled to contain this continuing danger precisely because it is literally built into our water systems.