Category:Solid Waste
This category relates to landfills with regard to space and hazards. Also recycling and e-waste. See also Plastic Consumption and Sustainability
News Articles and Reports
Recycling in America series from KQED's Quest.
Seattle gets creative 4/12.
Smart-trash uses barcode or RFID to track waste
Excellent article on plastic in the Pacific Gyre
Article on plastic bags at Salon.com
Article "The truth about recycling" in The Economist (Jun 7th 2007) has good history
An excellent article on bottled water. One on Fiji water.
Overview of Plastic's effect, especially on Marine ecosystems. Includes videos and legislation you can take action on.
Info on recycling cans and bottles.
College Composting programs (includes UCSC) 12/10
eBay is trying to help solve the ewaste problem with their Instant Sale program, a new way to sell electronics for cash or recycle them for free through their extensive network of electronics resellers...They’ll send a box for free shipping and deposit the money into your PayPal account. Even if the item has no value, you can still earn karma points by sending your gadget to them free of charge so it can be recycled.
Video
Director Lucy Walker spent months filming the stories of garbage pickers working at Rio de Janeiro's Jardim Gramacho, one of the world's largest landfills, for her 2011 Academy Award-nominated documentary, Waste Land. (trailer)After her Waste Land experience, Lucy set out to learn what happens to Los Angeles' garbage. slideshow and video) 7/11
The Story of Stuff is a fine overview (but don't cite it in a college paper, it's a cartoon).
The Story of Electronics, about e-waste, from the people who brought you The Story of Stuff. See also the story of bottled water
Penn and Teller's humorous take on the subject of bottled water.
The Story of Cell Phones (video) and what to do about them. Link
No Impact Man is the story of a family in New York that does an experiment: live for a year without impacting the environment. Surprisingly entertaining and enlightening.
Bag It documentary on plastic.
Fun mocumentary on the plastic bag.alt link Related: Lords of Recycling. Humor
Are mushrooms the new plastic? (TEDtalk video)
Tapped, a new documentary about the bottled water industry from director Stephanie Soechtig and the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car?, is a pretty damning look at how consumers have been tricked into spending too much money on water packaged in plastic and quite often not as clean as what's available from the faucet.trailer
Trash free couple, Julia Butterfly Hill, trash becomes art.
Trashed is quite good, now showing on PBS.
The Secret Life Of Paper. Americans consume more paper than anyone else on the planet. In 2006, Americans consumed 663 pounds of paper per person, versus 448 pounds in the UK and 136 pounds in Mexico. Yet very few of us stop to think about what constitutes responsible paper usage. Most are also unaware of the connection between the production and consumption of paper and global warming. In fact, the pulp and paper industry is the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the US manufacturing sector.
Tom Szaky visits Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss his book "Revolution in a Bottle: How TerraCycle is Redefining Green Business."Green@Google series. (video).
E-waste video
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition Talk by Ted Smith. See also Mapcruzin by Slug Mike Meuser *** South Bay map, SF Bay cumulative exposures, contaminated Bay Area groundwater.
E-Waste recycling in Ghana by kids from Global 3000.
Great Pacific Garbage Patch Capt. Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch -- an endless floating waste of plastic trash. TEDtalk. See also Synthetic Sea Preview from Algalita Foundation on plastic gyre.
Pacific gyre filled with plastic. PBS news segment featuring UCSC folk. [7/16 update audio. Gyre slideshow
Websites
Six least recyclable packaging
Books
Moby Duck (short article/audio) and longer interview with text excerpt. In 1992, a cargo ship container tumbled into the North Pacific, dumping 28,000 rubber ducks and other bath toys that were headed from China to the U.S. Currents took them, and news reports said some may have eventually reached Maine and other shores on the Atlantic. Thirteen years later, journalist Donovan Hohn undertook a mission: He wanted to track the movements of the wayward ducks, from the comfort of his own living room. It didn't work out that way, as you can tell from the complete title: Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them.
American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It)by Jonathan Bloom.
Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment, 1880-1980 by Martin V. Melosi S&E Stacks TD893.M44 review
Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World by Daniel Imhoff
Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash by Susan Strasser
Elizabeth Royte's new book Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It (includes Podcast interview) Her previous book Garbage Land is a good read.
Peter Gleick, a freshwater expert, is the author of Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water link to book and npr audio interview. Here's another interview 6/10, with an industry representative. The book is published by an UC alum who runs Island Press, which offers videochats with author. KQED interview.
Audio
Elizabeth Royte interviewed on new book Bottlemania on water bottles.
Elizabeth Royte's new book Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It (includes Podcast interview) Her previous book Garbage Land is a good read.
Boat Made of Plastic Bottles to Sail the Pacific. How do you raise awareness about plastic debris floating in the Pacific? You sail a boat made out of 15,000 plastic bottles from California to Hawaii. Marine scientists Joel Paschal and Marcus Erikson discuss their voyage.
Images
Plastic Ocean Waste Poster
Stunning images of accumulated consumer goods and resources by Chris Jordan. TEDtalk video PBS episode. Chris Jordan's heart-rending images of Albatross chicks who starved to death with their stomachs full of plastic. video of same
Photographer Edward Burtynsky documents how humans alter the world, and to a lesser degree the people engaged in doing the work (example). Video of TEDtalk accepting his award. A video, Manufactured Landscapes, (trailer) was made about his trip to China and its factories and the Three Gorges Dam. Excerpt.
Local Resources
Compost Santa Cruz Country has resources including vermicomposting with worms, see also The Worm Dude who abideth.
UCSC Sustainability video overview, including dining hall efforts
Articles in category "Solid Waste"
The following 3 pages are in this category, out of 3 total.
