By Max Liboiron, Lindsey Dillon, and submitting authors. Since at least the publication of Silent Spring, scientists, policy-makers, and the general public has focused on pollution in the environment as the object of regulation and control, a source of fear and anxiety, and the subject of scientific testing. As technologies, analytical detection limits, and eco-populist, […]
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For Sendhil, it’s all about keeping the trucks coming in at the right time, at the right pace. “If work stops here, then they’ll be a line of trucks waiting, people’s trash won’t get picked up. So, we just have to make sure everything keeps going.” Thus, he’s not concerned about segregation, or recycling. What he needs are good roads, infrastructure, he says. Only with that can they keep pushing the trash away from the houses, and prevent “incidents” like the small fires that break out on occasion.
By Max Liboiron. I suspect, that like me, urban followers of the Discard Studies blog spend a lot of time looking down. There is a lot of interesting trash on sidewalks, roads, and gutters, and now there is a place to share your awareness with the world (provided you have a smart phone): Litterati, the […]
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*This post originally appeared on Cyborgology. Objects have lives. They are witness to things. –This American Life, “The House on Loon Lake” Atlantic Cities’ feature on the psychology of “ruin porn” is worth a look–in part because it’s interesting in itself, in part because it features some wonderful images, and in part because it has […]
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Organised by the United Nations University under the aegis of the StEP Initiative, the EWAS has over the past three editions brought together nearly 60 young researchers from around the world, looking at solving the e-waste from different disciplinary perspectives. It has become the foremost forum available to young scientists to share their knowledge, interact […]
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This post originally appeared on Wired Opinion 06.18.13. Madison Sheffield cracks open a toaster oven, jams her hand inside, then turns on the power. It looks like she’s about to electrocute herself, but she seems unfazed. “Thermostat or heating element?” Sheffield mutters, yanking on wires and poking around with a multimeter. “Why isn’t this working?” […]
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This article was originally published by Max Liboiron in eTOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, Spring 2010. In laymen’s terms, recycling is “good for the environment.” It involves “doing your bit” to help “save the Earth.” Yet recycling requires high expenditures of energy and virgin materials, and produces pollutants, greenhouse gases and waste; it creates […]
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By Max Liboiron. A new article in Scientific American by John Maston, “On the Trail of Space Trash,”shows that our most exotic garbage has a lot in common with other forms of waste. His article explains one of the newer problems with space debris: it is multiplying. A September report by the National Research Council […]
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Elextrolux has commodified, beautified, and publicized one of the worst pollution dilemmas of the century. Last Fall they unveiled “Vacs from the Sea,” a series of vacuum cleaners made from ocean plastics. Each vac uses plastic from one of five global gyre locations collected in collaboration with environmental groups. The North Sea edition, for example, […]
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