Wan Yin Kim Fung’s “What Cannot Be Unearthed” is a sensitively told account that quite literally gives pause to the toxic fallout of nineteenth- and twentieth-century copper mining in eastern Japan. It was one of the two honorable mentions in the nonfiction category of the RCC environmental writing competition “Tell the Untold!”

This is Chapter 3 of the exhibition “Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring: A book that changed the world” by historian Mark Stoll.

This chapter from the virtual exhibition “The Life of Waste” highlights people who live with waste—landfill workers, waste pickers, trash collectors, sanitation workers—and the social, economic, and health challenges they face.