Multimedia | film profile
Trash Dance
In Trash Dance, choreographer Allison Orr tries to persuade employees of the Austin Department of Solid Waste to participate in a public dance performance.
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Arcadia
Onions and Tires in Sodom and Gomorrah
Agbogbloshie (Ghana) is an unnerving and fascinating example of human ingenuity, but at the same time an environmental and social tragedy.
Perspectives Article
The “Flying Dutchmen”: Ships’ Tales of Toxic Waste in a Globalized World
As a space where terrestrial jurisdiction did not apply, the ocean has often served as a repository for unwanted things, whether people or objects. This article traces the journeys of several ships and their cargos of toxic waste in the 1970s and 1980s.
Perspectives Article
The “Urban Mine” in Accra, Ghana
Urban mining—reclaiming valuable metals from discarded electronic devices—has become an important economic activity in the informal sector in places such as Agbogbloshie, a slum in Accra, Ghana. This article examines the material flows linking Ghana with the rest of the world, the politics of waste recycling, and the hazards faced by those processing e-waste.
Perspectives Article
The Last Sink: The Human Body as the Ultimate Radioactive Storage Site
For the residents of Ozersk, a small town that was the home to Russia’s first plutonium plant, the health effects of radioactivity have been too-little acknowledged by governments that prefer to focus instead on measuring “exposures” and isotope measurements in the surrounding environment.
Perspectives Article
Plastic, Oil Culture and the Ethics of Waste
Artwork and film projects have the potential to expose trash in a variety of forms and help us visualize, acknowledge, and critique larger systems in which plastic waste circulates and operates.
Multimedia | book profile
Powerless Science? Science and Politics in a Toxic World
Powerless Science? looks at complex historical, social, and political dynamics, made up of public controversies, environmental and health crises, economic interests, and political responses, and demonstrates how and to what extent scientific knowledge about toxicants has been caught between scientific, economic, and political imperatives.
Multimedia | journal article
"Evaluating the 'Ethical Matrix' as a Radioactive Waste Management Deliberative Decision-Support Tool"
The paper “Evaluating the ‘Ethical Matrix’ as a Radioactive Waste Management Deliberative Decision-Support Tool” by Matthew Cotton outlines the strengths and limitations of the matrix as well as a framework for the development of alternative tools to better satisfy the needs of ethical assessment in radioactive waste management decision-making processes.
Multimedia | journal article
"Remediation and Respect: Do Remediation Technologies Alter Our Responsibility?"
This paper examines the relationship between technologies that aim to remediate pollution and moral responsibility. The authors argue that such technologies do not exculpate polluters of responsibility.