Journey to the Safest Place on Earth
This film examines the limitations and contradictions of finding safe places for nuclear waste storage.
This film examines the limitations and contradictions of finding safe places for nuclear waste storage.
Hacia finales del siglo XIX, la ciudad se vio confrontada con la urgencia de construir nueva infraestructura como una exigencia impuesta para la transformación de su imagen y de las condiciones de vida de sus habitantes. La modernización de Bogotá hizo necesaria la transformación de espacios públicos y privados siguiendo los paradigmas europeos y norteamericanos sobre la higiene, el ornato y la moral. Mientras la ciudad crecía en términos de población e infraestructura, el volumen de residuos producidos por la población también aumentó.
The pollution of the Cuyahoga River was so severe that over the years the toxic waste caught fire numerous times. One specific fire in 1969 was reported upon by the Time Magazine and played a strong part in the movement towards cleansing the waterways nationwide.
The Oso Mudslide on 22 March 2014 results in massive destruction and over forty deaths in the rural community of Oso, Washington, which sits in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.
The Sydney Tar Ponds are a huge waste site in Nova Scotia, Canada that contains large amounts of toxic chemicals. The ponds formed in a river mouth, where steel corporations let their largely coal-based pollutants and sludge drain off for many decades.
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.
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When Gustavo Petro, then mayor of Bogotá, attempted to introduce a new zero garbage program that would allow the city’s informal recyclers to receive proper wages, he found himself in the middle of a hygienic crisis that was used by his political opponents to try to remove him from office. Garbage had become a battlefield upon which the struggle against corruption for social reform and justice was carried out.
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.
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.
Though a desirable environmental prospect, many wonder if zero waste is a realistic goal or merely a pipe dream. Starting from an analysis of the laws of thermodynamics, this article argues that it is an impossible ideal; however, along with the principles of the circular economy and reform of modern economic systems, the idea of zero waste can provide valuable insights into how we can establish a future ecological civilization.