AIDG Blog [Appropriate Technology, Development, Environment]

I’ve been hording all these links about waste for the past month or so. I’ve reached critical mass so here you go.

1. LA Times Staffers Win Pulitzer for ‘Altered Oceans’ Multimedia Series from Media Storm
   

   See part 4 for the impact of waste on the health of the seas.

   Also read Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas

2. Is Micro-Waste Management the New Micro-Credit? from Treehugger
   

   Vermi-composting, or composting using worms, is the heartbeat of the “Zero Solid Waste Management Plan”, allowing kitchen wastes collected by tricycle to be returned to local gardeners and farmers as fertilizer. Waste reduction also plays a part, as does identifying markets for the glass, plastic and other recyclables separated from the community wastes.

   This is also a nice example of a public private partnership that can make some cash and serve the BOP at the same time.

   From the Hindu

   Pepsico, the soft drinks giant, will provide Rs.15 lakhs to build the infrastructure on the site and purchase tricycles and pushcarts for collection and transportation of garbage.

3. The globalization of garbage from FP Passport
   

   And Meg Bortin raises a good question: “[W]hat will happen when Asian manufacturing powerhouses like India and China begin to produce even a fraction of the trash produced in the West[?]”

   Where indeed.

4. Stay Free interviews Giles Slade, the author of a book on planned obsolescence from Kottke

   An excerpt, I found particularly interesting

   GILES SLADE: …I do know that there is a booming aftermarket industry that has grown up around the iPod. IPods break so often and, after the warranty period, you can’t get them serviced from Apple, but you can trade them in. They’re very small, so it’s easy to chuck them. They are designed to work only for a specified amount of time, which an Apple rep initially said was four years, but then she was challenged on that and said she meant “for years.”

   STAY FREE!: On Mac blogs, everyone took Apple at its word and published that as a correction. . . . I recently bought a Patagonia coat because it has a lifetime warranty.

   Be sure to read the comment section of the Stay Free! post.

5. Prisoners Smash Computers from Treehugger
   

   Did you know that inmates in the US are being afforded the opportunity to recycle eWaste? The program has been running since 1994, through an arm of the government-run corporation UNICOR which opened its first eWaste ‘business’ in Florida. Since then, the company’s electronics recycling program has spread to other federal prisons across the country.

   Sound like a good idea? Not the way it’s being currently implemented, it’s not. Aside from getting paid slave wages (between 23 cents and $1.15 per hour), many of the prison laborers experience serious adverse health effects caused by exposure to toxic compounds in the electronics.

   In addition, the March 2007 issue of Prison Legal News has picked up on the practice, which suggests, amongst other things, that the program to just there to provide a labor intensive activity to keep inmates quiet. And, as the article reports, inmates are dying from the exposure to the toxic chemicals in the eWaste.

6. Germany’s Booming Incineration Industry: Burning the World’s Waste from Der Spiegel
   

   A booming new industry has quietly emerged in Germany. Waste incineration firms are importing massive amounts of toxic waste. Now public opposition is mounting against the burning of highly contaminated waste from Australia.

   I found this article intriguing because… well … most stories I’ve read recently about toxic waste disposal involve dodgy dealings with a developing country, much to the chagrin (and sometimes death) of its residents (See NYTimes article in October 2006 on petrochemical dumping in Ivory Coast that droves thousands to seek medical attention).

   The trip from one end of the world to the other reveals an economic sector that has expanded in Germany largely unnoticed until now: Germany has become one of the major importers of hazardous waste from all over the planet, a giant waste disposal facility for the rest of the world. Munitions waste from Sweden, pesticides from Columbia, asbestos-contaminated rubble from the United States, solvents from China and lead-acid batteries from Montenegro.

   Nothing that harms human beings, animals and the environment seems to be missing on the list, which is meticulously kept by the German Environmental Ministry. And the amounts have tripled since 2000 to reach more than 2,000 tons. Import volumes of asbestos-contaminated waste has risen by 400 percent in this period — that of industrial sludge by as much as 500 percent.

7. The final word on recycling from How the World Works
   Experts from the dismal science comment on recycling

   Gunter divides economists into four groups. The first is the command-and-control contingent, some of whom can be described as believing that, goshdarnit, recycling is good for your soul and the planet, and we’re going to make you do it whether you like it or not, no matter what the spreadsheet analysis says. Then there is the category of the majority, who go to great lengths to differentiate between the cost-effectiveness of various pro-recycling subsidies, incentives, taxes and other schemes, and generally conclude that, although there is no one-size-fits-all solution that is applicable to every municipality, markets do not work perfectly when it comes to waste disposal and thus need some help from government to achieve socially-desirable goals.

   Then there’s a section for those who don’t fit clearly into any category. And finally, bringing up the caboose, are the free marketers, thundering like God to Moses that “Thou shalt worship no other diety than the free market.” Only the free market, left to its own devices, will find the most efficient and wealth-generating means of dealing with waste.

8. 50 Ways to Reuse Your Yoga or Fitness Mat from Giaiam via Hugg
   

   Garage-band soundproofing, tree ornaments, crib mobiles, draft dodgers, workbench grippers … We asked users to tell us about the resourceful, earth-conscious ways they reuse a yoga or fitness mat when it’s time for a new one.

   My personal favorite: #6.Drop off your old mat at an animal rescue group. Most of these places need soft, durable mats, rugs, towels, & blankets to line crates. The poor helpless and homeless animals need comfort too!

   Oops, I’ve use my current mat for #19 when in a pickle.

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