Waste Archives

Tag: Waste

Why we worship waste

By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights

Most of us are taught from childhood that waste is bad. But society actually worships waste as a sign of wealth and power.

I’ve found it difficult to find a job that does not produce more waste than goods, that does not contribute to pollution and degradation of our planet, and that does not perpetuate social systems of domination and violence.

Nothing wasted: Industry as an ecosystem

By Trevor Decker Cohen, Shareable

When we learn from the way nutrients are constantly broken down and repurposed in natural systems, we find opportunities for a circular economy everywhere.

Share Catch Chile’s waste reduction bus – how behaviour change, new infrastructure and different business models are cutting waste

By Rapid Transition Alliance Staff, Rapid Transition Alliance

This is the story of the potential for a rapid transformation of the waste crisis illustrated by one social enterprise in Chile, and its work to encourage people in communities and in industry to produce less waste and to recycle more.

What a Waste

By Richard Heinberg, Resilience.org

Why not make the economy circular, with waste from one process feeding into other production processes, thus dramatically reducing the need both for resource extraction and for the dumping of rubbish? We should mimic nature: it’s a central ideal of the ecology movement, with roots in indigenous wisdom worldwide.

Putting Things Back where They Should Be – Managing Waste in Naivasha Town

By Wangũi Kamonji, Transition Network

James Kagwe, who runs a waste management collective called ‘Waste to Best’ in Naivasha Town in Kenya’s Rift Valley. His path has taken him from flower growing to street clean-ups, waste collection and waste management.

Dirty father Thames : Father Thames shown as a filthy looking vagrant, and the river as a repository of filth and industrial waste. Punch (1848). Via Wikimedia Commons.

The toxic price of convenience

By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights

The desire to make our lives maintenance-free often creates unintended environmental and health consequences. Every decision to transfer a maintenance task to a chemical substance only complicates the goal of creating a healthy environment.

The High Cost of an Easy-Care, Low-Maintenance World

By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights

By abandoning the duty of maintenance we owe to the objects in our lives, we are distancing ourselves from the physical world and essentially sending the entropy elsewhere for someone else to deal with, whether human or non-human.