Solid waste
Optional Resources
Online Resources
"100 Bodies Found in Philippine
Garbage Slide," Environment News Service, 11 July 2000 -- "Philippine search and
rescue workers have recovered 100 bodies from the Payatas garbage dump after torrential
rains brought down the mountain of garbage in the northern Manila suburb of Quezon city.
People who make their living picking over the garbage for marketable and recyclable items
were caught in the rubbish slide."
"Cleaning Up a Legacy of
High-Altitude Trash," Jennifer Bogo, Environmental News Network, 27 February 2000 --
"Historically, mountain climbing has not treaded lightly on the earth. Beyond the
prints left by thick, heavy boots is a trail of old tents, ropes, oxygen bottles, tins,
glass and human waste that stretches from sea level to the highest peak on the planet -
the summit of Mount Everest."
"Study Unravels Consumer
Waste," Lucy Chubb, Environmental News Network, 7 December 1999 -- In the U.S.
"as much as 12 percent of purchased products are never used and eventually
discarded."
"Backyard Burning Identified As
Potential Major Source Of Dioxins," American Chemical Society, 4 January 2000 --
"A family of four burning trash in a barrel in their backyard-- still a common
practice in many rural areas-- can potentially put as much dioxin and furan into the air
as a well-controlled municipal waste incinerator serving tens of thousands of
households..."
Rotten Truth (About Garbage),
Association of Science-Technology Centers Incorporated and the Smithsonian Institution
Traveling Exhibition Service, 1998. -- An online ehibition which takes an in-depth look at
the complex issues surrounding municipal solid waste. It is organized into four major
sections: What Is Garbage?, There's No "Away", Nature Recycles, and Making
Choices.
"Population and Consumption:
Redefining Happiness," National Wildlife Federation
"Poor Town That Sought
Incinerator Finds More Problems, Few Benefits," Jon Jeter, Washington Post, 11
April 1998, Page A03 (posted by Hoosier Environmental Council) -- Examines the case of
Robbins, Illinois, a Chicago suburb
"Steelborn," Down
to Earth [India], 31 March 1998 (v. 7, n. 21) -- Thousands suffer in India's
ship-breaking yards while an unconcerned government invites more ships for
scrapping. Most of the scrap steel India produces-- some 2.6 million tonnes every
year-- comes from Alang, a small coastal town in Gujarat. "But the scrap steel from
Alang is tainted by the blood of a hundred workers. Alang houses the world's largest
ship-breaking yard, where hundreds of poorly trained workers reduce ships to scrap. They
work in an extremely treacherous environment and live in sub-human conditions."
Welfare for Waste: How Federal
Taxpayer Subsidies Waste Resources and Discourage Recycling, GrassRoots Recycling
Network, April 1999 -- Report which identifies 15 tax and spending subsidies pouring $13
billion over 5 years into industries that compete directly with recycling.
"Environmental Leaders State,
'Good Science Ambushed by Bad Politics,' As Feds Refuse to Protect Public Health from
Power Plant Waste Dumps," PRNewswire, 25 April 2000.
"Garbage: Your Problem," Down
to Earth [India], 31 January 2000 (v. 8, n. 17) -- Excellent overview of situation in
India.
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"Massachusetts Bans Computer
Dumping," Associated Press, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 31 March 2000
"Trash Inside the Heap,"
Vanessa Baird, New Internationalist Magazine, Issue 295, 1997 -- an international
and sociological view of trash
"Dumping Sewage Sludge on Organic Farms? Why USDA Should Just Say No,"
Environmental Working Group, 30 April 1998.
Sewage Sludge Home Page -- extensive information and links
ReDO -- A non-profit organization, whose mission is "to
promote reuse as an environmentally sound, socially beneficial and economical means
for managing surplus and discarded materials."
"As If the Future Mattered," Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly
#167, 5 February 1990. -- Addresses the advantages of trash incineration, and the reasons
why trash incineration makes little or no sense for most communities.
"A New U.S. Waste Strategy Emerges," Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly
#560, 21 August 1997. -- "A new strategy for disposal of hazardous materials is
emerging in the U.S. After years of unsuccessful efforts to gain public acceptance of
waste disposal in the oceans, in landfills, and in incinerators, frustrated environmental
officials at the federal and state levels now advocate spreading hazardous materials onto
and into the land, essentially dispersing dangerous toxins into the environment, leaving
no fingerprints."
"The
Producer Pays," Jim Motavalli, E/The Environmental Magazine, May - June, 1997
-- With Germany leading the way, governments are taking a hard look at packaging waste--
and making manufacturers bear the cost.
ULS
(Use Less StuffTM) Day -- Held each
year on the day before Thanksgiving, significant because it inaugurates the high-waste
holiday season. During the five weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's, Americans
produce an extra one million tons of trash per week, compared to any other time of the
year.
"Something
to Hide: The Sorry State of Plastics Recycling," Richard A. Denison, Environmental
Defense Fund, October, 1997
"The
Basics of Landfills," Maria B. Pellerano and others, August 1996
"Garbage; How Can My Community Reduce Waste?" 1998, an exhibit by The
Annenberg/CPB Project.
"Medical Wasteland," by Kelly Luker, 1998 -- Revealing article about the
problems of medical waste in the Santa Cruz, California, area.
"The Recent History of Solid Waste: Good Alternatives Are Now Available," Rachel's
Environment and Health Weekly #289, 10 June 1992.
Waste Not -- an
online periodical, edited by Ellen and Paul Connett, which monitors "dangers posed by
the incinerators of solid, hazardous and medical waste with a particular reference to
dioxin and toxic metal emissions, ash disposal, health threat to plant workers, the
financial threats to the local economy and the political threat to the local
democracy."
An Ounce of
Prevention, -- An online "Middle Level Science Curriculum on Source
Reduction," 1996, by National Science Teachers Association and Dow Chemical Company
"EDF Proposes Incinerator Ash Dumps," Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly
#403, 18 August 1994 -- "The waste industry and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)
have held a series of private meetings... to develop a proposal to change federal law, to
remove the term 'hazardous' from all ash produced by municipal solid waste (msw)
incinerators."
"Where are you Al?" by L.J. Davis, Mother Jones, Nov.-Dec. 1993 --
"Our Earth in the Balance Vice President is unable--or unwilling--to stop
even as dangerous a project as the Ohio incinerator."
"EPA's New Landfill Rules Protect Only the Largest Garbage Haulers," Rachel's
Environment and Health Weekly #268, 15 January 1992.
"The San Diego Report" -- on the business practices of Waste Management, Inc.,
the nation's largest waste hauler. Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly
#299, 19 August 1992.
Waste
Management, Inc.: An Encyclopedia of Environmental Crimes & Other Misdeeds, by
Charlie Cray, 1991.
Stop Waste Management
(WMX) Campaign
Waste Age.com Website
-- selected articles online
Recycler's
World, Publication Directory
National Pollution
Prevention Roundtable
"Public Ownership of Dumps Is the Key," Rachel's Environment and Health
Weekly #232, 8 May 1991.
Thomas Detwyler maintains this page (tdetwyle@uwsp.edu)
Last updated 11 September 2000
� Copyright 1998-2001 by Thomas Detwyler