Category:Solid Waste
This category relates to landfills with regard to space and hazards, including Water contamination. Also recycling, sewage and e-waste. See also Plastic as well as Consumption and Sustainability, and Chemicals, as well as Global Warming, as well as Environmental Justice and believe it or not Art for some creative recycling. See also Food Scarcity as well as Bio-Fuels.
Contents
News Articles and Reports
Sewage (includes food animal waste, see also below in specific topics).
Bill Gates Unveils Toilet That Transforms Waste Into Fertilizer, Doesn't Require Water or Sewers 12/18.
HomeBiogas, an Israel-based startup, has created an affordable and compact anaerobic digester that converts organic waste into cooking gas and liquid fertilizer. Home wastes like food scraps, kitchen trash and pet manure no longer have to go to waste.
Dirty Diapers Could Be Recycled Into Fabrics, Furniture Under P&G Joint Venture 10/18.
Factory Farms Are a #LoadOfCrap, Says New Report, includes stats 5/15. See also EJ aspect.
Bio-bus runs on poo. 12/14.
Diapers Made From Jellyfish May Be The Next Big Thing In Green Parenting] 4/14.
World Toilet Day (aka Brown Friday.
Amsterdam is collecting pee from public toilets and dumping it on green roofs
Wastewater Use To Increase As Worldwide Supplies Of Freshwater Dry Up, Study Says 9/13.
Toilet that makes power see also Design Challenges. 7/13.
A gourmet meal is cooked in compost
Four teenage girls in Africa have invented a generator powered by pee
Hack the toilet 9/12.
Food Waste (see also Food Scarcity
Be a food waste warrior in 2018 12/17.
THE STAGGERING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS OF FOOD WASTE: Fifty-two million tons of food are wasted by consumers and consumer-facing businesses annually — over 80 percent of all U.S. food waste. Currently, less than 10 percent of that food is recovered by reaching the 1 in 7 Americans without enough to eat. Food that goes to landfills breaks down in a heap without oxygen, producing methane, a gas with 86 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. These emissions are no small matter. Considered on a national scale, organic matter rotting in landfills accounts for 1/5 of methane emissions. In fact, if global food loss and waste were its own country, it would be the world’s third largest source of greenhouse gases. 12/16
Why Two Filmmakers Ate Nothing But Trash for Six Months see Food.
Innovative Startup Sells Coffee Grounds to Fuel Cars and Power Buildings 3/15.
California grocery chain turns food waste into electricity straight outta Compton 5/13. British Supermarket to Power Itself Solely With Food Waste 7/14.
This restaurant fines customers who waste food .
Tristram Stuart: The global food waste scandal TEDtalk. (his book).
For Restaurants, Food Waste Is Seen As Low Priority, contributes methane to global warming. 11/12.
Omaha teenager starts a program to donate ungrateful kids’ fruit to the hungry
AmpleHarvest connects home gardeners to hungry people.
Food waste in rich and poor countries for different reasons.
Don’t toss your cookies: Curbing the crisis of food waste 8/12.
Fuel From Waste, Poised at a Milestone 11/12 See also Bio=Fuels.
Starbucks' Food Waste Fuels Experimental Biorefinery 9/12.
College Composting programs (includes UCSC) 12/10.
Farm Waste Fashionistas 4/14 video.
Other News
Just how big is India's 'Mount Everest of Trash'? The Ghazipur dump keeps growing and growing every year, catching fire and leaching toxins into the ground. What can be done about it? 6/19. see India.
Report: 64% of Bottled Water Is Tap Water, Costs 2000x More 2/18.
Two Major Food Companies Announce War on Packaging Waste 1/18.
Earthship homes are built from recycled materials, and require no imputs or outputs. College 8 needs a provost house with an ocean view. hmmn...Fresh out of architectural school in 1972, Michael Reynolds immediately started to question much of what he had just learned. Why build houses with trees when forests are something we want to preserve? Why pay for electricity, water, and heat when all of it can be provided off-the-grid using existing materials and renewable resources like wind, rain, and solar? Reynolds set out to design a home built from dirt, tires, aluminum cans and other repurposed objects and so successful others began to take notice. Now, an entire community lives in these unusual homes called ‘Earthships’ in Taos, New Mexico.
Electronic Waste Study Finds $65 Billion in Raw Materials Discarded in Just One Year 12/17. See E-waste below.
3D Printing Turns Plastic Trash Into Public Furniture 11/17.
Watch This Man Walk Around NYC Wearing His Trash 9/16
Solar-Powered Water Wheel Removes 350 Tons of Trash From Baltimore Harbor 12/15.
Landfills see Environmental Justice 11/15.
Personal Storage Industry = $22 Billion and Growing: Our Addiction to "Stuff" Knows No Bounds 10/15.
Fungus eats plastic 5/15.
Styrofoam and recycling explained in less than 4 minutes! 5/15 video.
How the Beverage Industry Brainwashed You to Fear Tap Water and buy bottled, The Most Brazen Rip-Off Ever?
23-Year-Old Hasn’t Produced Any Garbage in Two Years 2/15.
World’s First Plantable Coffee Cup to Replenish Forests
How a Solar-Powered Water Wheel Can Clean 50,000 Pounds of Trash Per Day From Baltimore’s Inner Harbor 6/14 see Plastic.
Top Sustainable Solution: Pedal-Powered Recycling 10/14.
Diapers Made From Jellyfish May Be The Next Big Thing In Green Parenting] 4/14.
Farm Waste Fashionistas (corn-based fabric) 4/14 video.
10 beautifully useful things made from ‘useless’ trash 4/14.
These guys just revolutionized the humble cardboard box.
Worldwide waste production could increase 3X by 2100 11/13.
Trash powerplant doubles as ski slope
From Trash to Cash: Old Landfills Yield New Opportunities
Green Nobel Prize won by Rossano Ercolini, Italy (video). An elementary school teacher, Ercolini began a public education campaign about the dangers of incinerators in his small Tuscan town that grew into a national Zero Waste movement. Also, unfazed by powerful political opponents and a pervasive culture of violence, Nohra Padilla organized Colombia’s marginalized waste pickers to make recycling a legitimate part of waste management.
Zero Waste, Packaging-Free Grocery Store to Rock in Texas. 3/13. wastebasket with built in recycling/composting.
Disappearing packaging could save 70 million tons of waste a year 2/13.
NYC may ban styrofoam, up composting (cf. SF).
This office building is made entirely out of recycled paper.
Sweden recycles so effectively that it has to import garbage to incinerate 9/12.
Apple opts out of green standards. 7.12 (e-waste)
The Atlantic‘s Derek Thompson wrote a simple and solid overview of a report released this week by the World Bank. The report, “What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management,” is a thorough assessment of the world’s current and future garbage production. 6.12.
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.
Peer to Peer
Collaborative Consumption is named by Grist as trend of year more, i.e., the fine art of networked, consensual mooching. At the risk of sounding like a dangerous commie: It turns out there's basically no reason to be the sole owner of anything ever again. A great directory. More programs 5/12. Interview with Shareable founder on his epiphany. (Also see social entrepreneurs). 1/13
Trashswag allows people to post the location of these curbside treasures online, with photos, to alert other potentially interested parties of their find.
Bike-sharing program peer to peer. 12/12 other programs.
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.
The Mesh: Why the Future of Business Is Sharing by Lisa Gansky see TEDtalk 2013.
Sharing Revolution: The essential economics of the commons by Jessica Conrad 3/14 (download the free e-book).
Video
Story of..
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.
The Story of Cell Phones (video) and what to do about them. Link.
Secondhand Adam Minter reported on the export of used goods and the impact “secondhand” culture has on American and global economics (video) 1/20.
Trashed: Follow Jeremy Irons on an emotional journey that looks closely at the consequences of our ever-growing piles of trash. From vast landscapes in China to a small boat in the North Pacific, Irons guides us through beautiful landscapes that are being ruined by our wasteful habits. At the same time as exposing the consequences of our over-consumption, writer/director Candida Brady has gone in search of solutions. Trashed profiles San Francisco’s rush to zero waste.
DIVE! LIVING OFF AMERICA'S WASTE BY JEREMY SIEFERT (DVD) follows circle of friends as they dumpster dive in the back alleys and gated garbage receptacles of L.A.'s supermarkets. In the process they uncover thousands of dollars worth of good food and an ugly truth about waste in America: grocery stores know they are wasting and most refuse to do anything about it.
Why Two Filmmakers Ate Nothing But Trash for Six Months see Food. 7/15.
Earthship homes are built from recycled materials, and require no imputs or outputs. College 8 needs a provost house with an ocean view. hmmn...Fresh out of architectural school in 1972, Michael Reynolds immediately started to question much of what he had just learned. Why build houses with trees when forests are something we want to preserve? Why pay for electricity, water, and heat when all of it can be provided off-the-grid using existing materials and renewable resources like wind, rain, and solar? Reynolds set out to design a home built from dirt, tires, aluminum cans and other repurposed objects and so successful others began to take notice. Now, an entire community lives in these unusual homes called ‘Earthships’ in Taos, New Mexico.
TerraCycle will be on reality TV 6/14
The Mesh: Why the Future of Business Is Sharing by Lisa Gansky see TEDtalk 2013. see Peer to peer above.
San Francico has gotten to 80% diversion from landfills with composting, heading for 100%. PBS NewsHour 1/13.
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
Penn and Teller's humorous take on the subject of bottled water.
Music made from landfill junk.
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)
Energy from floating algae pods Call it "fuel without fossils": Jonathan Trent is working on a plan to grow new biofuel by farming micro-algae in floating offshore pods that eat wastewater from cities. TEDtalk 9/12.
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).
Poop and paddle demonstrates how sewage and rainwater can be converted to cattails and clean water. (video).
San Francisco: Panel discussion: A San Francisco urbanite, an infrastructure expert, a business sustainability director and a political leader show us the 30,000-foot view of a sustainable city and dive into the everyday actions that could move us toward a zero waste future.4/13.
Green Nobel Prize won by Rossano Ercolini, Italy. An elementary school teacher, Ercolini began a public education campaign about the dangers of incinerators in his small Tuscan town that grew into a national Zero Waste movement. Inspired by a trip to San Francisco. (video).
Websites
Six least recyclable packaging
Books
Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade by Adam Minter takes us from back-alley Chinese computer recycling operations to high-tech facilities capable of processing a jumbo jet’s worth of recyclable trash every day. Along the way, we meet an unforgettable cast of characters who’ve figured out how to build fortunes from what we throw away. (audio interview).
In Trash Backwards, journalist David Naylor spotlights intriguing ways entrepreneurs are reducing our trash burden. He travels to major US cities including Los Angeles, Charleston, Seattle, Milwaukee, and Atlanta to meet creative thinkers who put a fresh perspective on the saying 'one man's trash is another's treasure.' (published by Island Press, go Slugs!)
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.
The Big Necessity is about another subject that is largely out of sight: where human waste goes after you flush the toilet, and what happens in regions that don't have plumbing. interview.
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
Recycling in America KQED series.
Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade by Adam Minter takes us from back-alley Chinese computer recycling operations to high-tech facilities capable of processing a jumbo jet’s worth of recyclable trash every day. Along the way, we meet an unforgettable cast of characters who’ve figured out how to build fortunes from what we throw away. (audio interview). 11/13.
How to Get to Zero Waste: Is the curbside garbage can headed for the dustbin of history? The city of Palo Alto has launched a pilot project that eliminates curbside garbage bins, using only compost and recycling bins. The aim of the project is to achieve zero landfill waste, a goal San Francisco and other Bay Area cities also hope to reach. We talk about what consumers can do to reduce waste and keep their compostable and recyclable trash out of the landfill.
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, Maps and Charts
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.
Specific Topics
Bottled Water
(not complete, see Plastic)
The Story of Bottled Water from the people who brought you The Story of Stuff.
Peter Gleick, a freshwater expert, is the author of Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water(video discussion of book) 11/11. (see book below)
Bag It documentary on plastic.
Penn and Teller's humorous take on the subject of bottled water.
Report: 64% of Bottled Water Is Tap Water, Costs 2000x More 2/18.
Coca-Cola Produced More Than 110 Billion Plastic Bottles Last Year 10/17.
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. The Royte Stuff blog by author of two great books on plastic, Garbageland and Bottlemania.
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.
UCSC/College 8's Prof Szasz wrote Shopping Our Way to Safety: How We Changed from Protecting the Environment to Protecting Ourselves, which includes a chapter on bottled water, a method of "inverted quarantine."
Good use for plastic bottles? (humor).
Gabi Kirk (Kresge ‘12, environmental studies and history), Office of Sustainability events coordinator, helped start a campaign to end the sales of single-use plastic water bottles on campus. The campaign, “Take Back the Tap,” is now the subject of her senior thesis.
Nestlé and Coca-Cola Attempt to Block National Parks From Banning Bottled Water Sales 11/16.
Nestlé Can Keep Piping Water Out of Drought-Stricken California Despite Permit Expiring in 1988 9/16 History of bottled water 10/15.
Nice bottle update: Nestlé bottled water is tapping springs in the San Bernardino National Forest in southern California using a permit that expired 27 years ago... company’s CEO Tim Brown "... In fact, if I could increase it, I would.” 9/15.
World’s Largest Plastic Bottle Structure Draws Attention to Global Plastic Pollution Crisis. See Art.
E-waste
(see also Environmental Justice)
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition is a great resource. 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. 60 Minutes expose on China.
Why Apple Deliberately Slowing Down iPhones Is Harming the Environment 12/17.
Electronic Waste Study Finds $65 Billion in Raw Materials Discarded in Just One Year 12/17.
Stunning Photos Capture Devastating Worldwide E-Waste Problem 4/15.
China Acknowledges “Cancer Villages” 5/13. See also China.
Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade by Adam Minter takes us from back-alley Chinese computer recycling operations to high-tech facilities capable of processing a jumbo jet’s worth of recyclable trash every day. Along the way, we meet an unforgettable cast of characters who’ve figured out how to build fortunes from what we throw away. (audio interview). 11/13.
The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-Use and Abuse to Africa.
bike powered e-Waste recycling device.
Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia.
Your Smartphone's Dirty, Radioactive Secret. The rare earths inside microcomputers make our lives easier. But just how toxic are the guts of your smartphone? See also conflict minerals, e.g., coltan in Africa.
Great Pacific Garbage Patch See also Plastic page
History of bottled water 10/15.
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.
Styrofoam and recycling explained in less than 4 minutes! 5/15 video.
Sewage/Composting
College Composting programs (includes UCSC) 12/10.
Bio-bus runs on poo. 12/14. see Bio-Fuels.
Gates funded toilet 11/12
A gourmet meal is cooked in compost
Four teenage girls in Africa have invented a generator powered by pee
Hack the toilet 9/12.
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.
College Composting programs (includes UCSC) 12/10.
Yat Li, associate professor of chemistry, and team developed the solar-microbial device which harnesses sun and sewage to produce hydrogen fuel, using only sunlight and wastewater to produce hydrogen gas could provide a sustainable energy source while improving the efficiency of wastewater treatment. The hybrid device combines a microbial fuel cell (MFC) and a type of solar cell called a photoelectrochemical cell (PEC). In the MFC component, bacteria degrade organic matter in the wastewater, generating electricity in the process. The biologically generated electricity is delivered to the PEC component to assist the solar-powered splitting of water (electrolysis) that generates hydrogen and oxygen.
How to set a recycling business by UC alum and green cartographer.
Daniel Press is a professor of environmental studies and executive director of the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. His research interests include environmental politics and policy, land preservation, water quality regulation and management, recycling, industrial ecology, and policy analysis. He is the author of multiple books, including this year’s American Environmental Policy: The Failures of Compliance, Abatement and Mitigation. Press’s 5/15 LASER talk will focus on paper recycling, which in many American communities is usually considered good environmental practice and sound environmental policy. “However, our country treats recycling as waste management, not industrial feedstock,” notes Press. “The resulting paper recovery practices are bad for trade, U.S manufacturing and labor, and environmental quality. Shifting from waste management to industrial policy offers ways of making good on the promise of recycling."
Articles in category "Solid Waste"
The following 3 pages are in this category, out of 3 total.
