Category Archives: Law

Scientists Call to Classify Plastic Waste as Hazardous Waste

By Max Liboiron. An international group of scientists, including the young Chelsea Rochman and Mark Anthony Browne from California, with the support of the veteran marine scientist Richard Thompson from the UK and a host of others from the USA and Japan, has called on policy-makers to classify plastic waste as hazardous waste. Their argument, published in the latest issue of […]
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OWS vs. City of New York: Leveraging Discard Politics

By Max Liboiron Occupy Wall Street, and specifically representatives of the People’s Library, are suing New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg, its police commissioner Ray Kelly, the Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty, and other City officials in the seizure and discard of 2,798 books during the raid on Zuccotti Park on November 15, 2011. If you are […]
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Speaking out of place: First Amendment Rights Area

By Max Liboiron. When visiting National Parks, be sure to note the location of the nearest “1st Amendment Rights Area.” As a reminder, this is the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or […]
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Dumpsters, Muffins, Waste and Law

A guest post by Sebastian Abrahamsson and Katja de Vries. This is the fourth post in a series of guest posts by participants of the Association of American Geographers conference series on waste. Dumpsters, Muffins, Waste and Law Sebastian Abrahamsson and Katja de Vries I. This is a bag of muffins. Muffins are edible breads that […]
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Under the radar, off the books

By Robin Nagle “What is the aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded?”  Emerson, “Self Reliance” Nannies, drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes, freelance carpenters, water entrepreneurs, “gypsy-cab” drivers, babysitters, street vendors and sidewalk gamesmen — what they all share in common is a life spent precariously under the radar (Venkatesh 2006), or […]
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Discard by Power: Occupy Wall Street’s People’s Library Dumped

By Max Liboiron One topic we rarely post about on Discard Studies is the connection between power and forced acts of waste. Robert Moses’s aggressive eviction-based freeways in the 1960s, landlord sponsored arson in Harlem and the Bronx in the 1970s, and, as of Monday, the forcible eviction of Occupy Wall Street from Zucotti Park […]
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