Society’s approach to environmental protection has so far relied on certain prevailing, but perhaps specious, beliefs—that we cannot impact the environment positively, or that environmental protection is incompatible with economic growth. Braungart explores how, rather than making ineffective changes to an already broken system, it would be more beneficial to rethink that system entirely.
In case studies ranging from the Early Modern secondhand trade to utopian visions of human-powered vehicles, the contributions gathered here explore the historical fortunes of bicycling and waste recycling—tracing their development over time and providing valuable context for the policy successes and failures of today.
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.
Energy-from-waste plants in places like Britain were designed help reduce waste and carbon emissions, but they have had unintended side-effects.
Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, New York, was the subject of a struggle over where to dispose of the waste of a city strapped for space. While the landfill was closed in 2001, the events of 9/11 and the need to clear the large amounts of rubble and human remains from the site of the Twin Towers attack turned Fresh Kills into hallowed ground, which posed new questions about the future of the site.
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.
Waste is never completely or permanently “out of sight.” Once discarded, it undergoes transformations, often reappearing elsewhere in new forms. In this volume of RCC Perspectives, scholars from different disciplines—from history and art history, urban geography, environmental studies, and anthropology—investigate the traces waste leaves behind in the course of its travels.
Content
In this issue of Earth First! Darryl Cherney gives an update on the protests against logging in Goshawk Grove in Sanctuary Forest, California. Daniel Gibson writes on waste management, Roland Knapp calls for attention to the neglected White Mountains in California, and ecologist George Wuerthner untangles the “let burn” policy in Yellowstone National Park.
Jeremy Irons leads the viewer around the world as he explores the worst effects of the amount of waste humans produce, and what can be done about it.
