By Max Liboiron A lot of discard issues are about scale. Scale is expressed in functions of measurement or computation, yet scale is more than a quantitative sum. Scale is always relative (“bigger,” “smaller,” “less than,” “twice as much,” “a quarter of”), and therefore relational. So scale is not merely about being big or small. […]
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Two environmental research and advocacy centers, 5 Gyres Institute and the Algalita Marine Research Institute, are offering nine places on a 72-foot research yacht for $13,500 to $15,500 per person to view– and research– the ocean debris fields of Japan’s tsunami. The expedition’s first leg will sail from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands through the area […]
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Archeologist Jason De Leon uses discards left through undocumented migration on the US/Mexico border to narrate the social, political, and geographical elements of one of the world’s largest ongoing modern-day migrations. The University of Washington has published a full length article about his work. In a small, cluttered office in Denny Hall, De Leon is […]
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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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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.
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.
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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Discard Studies 