Episode 7: "E-Waste and Obsolescence"
Sean Kheraj discusses the problem of e-waste with the author of Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America, Giles Slade.
Sean Kheraj discusses the problem of e-waste with the author of Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America, Giles Slade.
Summers shows that modern environmentalism is among the most important legacies of a consumer society.
This film follows the results of water privatization in Germany and England.
A couple competes to live with zero waste for a whole year, with comedic results.
This film follows the efforts of the city of San Francisco to reach zero waste.
Is a world without waste truly achievable? The essays in this volume of RCC Perspectives discuss zero waste as a vision, as a historical concept, and as an international practice. Going beyond the motto of “reduce, reuse, recycle,” they reflect on the feasibility of creating closed material cycles and explore real-world examples of challenges and successes on the way to zero waste.
Inspiration for sustainable waste policies and management will likely come from countries in the Global South, where consumerism and discard-oriented production are not yet fully established, where economies are less fixated on growth, and people’s lifestyles are not yet “cocooned in the consumption bubble.” Drawing on examples of informal and cooperative recyclers in Brazil, Gutberlet argues that these workers have developed effective practices and policies supporting circular economy, sufficiency, and solidarity.
Hausmüll documents the rise of a “new” environmental problem in post-war Germany, that of an increase in consumption and consequently a dramatic increase in waste.
In Recycling, former Rachel Carson Center fellow Finn Arne Jørgensen investigates the benefits and drawbacks of recycling.
The participants in a roundtable discussion that took place in May 2013 at LMU’s Center for Advanced Studies draw on their collective experience in engineering, anthropology, environmental justice, and city politics, in order to explore the impact of waste, and the strategies we should, and currently do, employ as we work towards zero waste in the world.