THE STORY OF STUFF
Page 44
made_to_break.htm).
62. “Poison PCs and Toxic TVs,” Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, p. 9. Based on data from Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation’s Electronics Industry Environmental Roadmap, 1996.
63. E-Waste: The Exploding Global Electronic Waste Crisis, Electronics TakeBack Coalition, p. 8 (computertakeback.com/legislation/Ewaste%20Briefing%20Book.pdf).
64. “Problem: Electronics Become Obsolete Quickly.”
65. “Facts and Figures on E-Waste Recycling,” Electronics TakeBack Coalition (computertakeback.com/Tools/Facts_and_Figures.pdf).
66. Ibid.
67. Brandon Sample, “Prisoners Exposed to Toxic Dust at UNICOR Recycling Factories,” Prison Legal News, July 15, 2009 (prisonlegalnews.org/displayArticle.aspx?articleid=20750&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1).
68. Elena H. Page and David Sylvain of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health report on the health and safety investigation of the Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR) electronics recycling program at Federal Bureau of Prisons institutions in Ohio, Texas, and California in a July 16, 2008, letter to Randall Humm, investigative counsel, U.S. Department of Justice (peer.org/docs/doj/08_28_7_ elkton_prison_niosh_report.pdf).
69. Sample, “Prisoners Exposed to Toxic Dust at UNICOR Recycling Factories.”
70. Michelle Chen, “E-waste: America’s Electronics Feed the Global Digital Dump,” The Women’s International Perspective, April 26, 2009 (thewip.net/contributors/2009/04/
ewaste_americas_electronics_fe.html).
71. Personal correspondence with Jim Puckett, February 2009.
72. “Environmentalists and Consumer Groups Applaud Dell’s Policy on E-Waste Export,” Electronics TakeBack Coalition, May 12, 2009 (computertakeback.com/media/
press_releases_dell_export_poliy.htm).
73. “States Are Passing E-Waste Legislation,” Electronics TakeBack Coalition (electronicstakeback.com/legislation/
state_legislation.htm).
74. “The e-Steward Solution,” e-Stewards (e-stewards.org/esteward_solution.html).
75. “The State of Garbage in America 2008,” BioCycle, vol. 49, no. 12, December 2008, p. 22 (jgpress.com/archives/_free/001782.html).
76. Van Jones, The Green Collar Economy (San Francisco: Harper One, 2008), p. 7.
77. Landfill Operation Management Advisor website: loma.civil.duth.gr/.
78. “Fresh Kills Park Project Introduction,” New York City Department of City Planning, 2007 (nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/fkl/fkl_index.shtml).
79. Landfill Operation Management Advisor website: loma.civil.duth.gr/.
80. Catherine Brahic, “Atlas of hidden water may avert future conflict,” New Scientist, October 24, 2008 (newscientist.com/article/dn15030-atlas-of-hidden-water-may-avert-future-conflict.html).
81. In the Federal Register, February 5, 1981, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency first stated its opinion that all landfills will eventually leak: “There is good theoretical and empirical evidence that the hazardous constituents that are placed in land disposal facilities very likely will migrate from the facility into the broader environment. This may occur several years, even many decades, after placement of the waste in the facility, but data and scientific prediction indicate that, in most cases, even with the application of best available land disposal technology, it will occur eventually.” More than a year later, on July 26, 1982, the EPA again put its opinions into the Federal Register, emphasizing that all landfills will inevitably leak: “A liner is a barrier technology that prevents or greatly restricts migration of liquids into the ground. No liner, however, can keep all liquids out of the ground for all time. Eventually liners will either degrade, tear, or crack and will allow liquids to migrate out of the unit,” vol. 46, no. 24, p. 32284.
82. “Waste Identification,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov/osw/hazard/wastetypes/wasteid/index.htm).
83. Daniel Steinway, “Trashing Superfund: The Role of Municipal Solid Waste in CERCLA Cases,” The American Lawyer’s Corporate Counsel Magazine, November 1999 (library.findlaw.com/1999/Nov/1/130490.htm).
84. “Additive to reduce cows’ methane emissions on innovation shortlist,” The Low Carbon Economy (lowcarboneconomy.com/community_content/
_low_carbon_news/5073).
85. “Landfills Are Dangerous,” Environmental Research Foundation (rachel.org/en/node/4467). This summary cites twenty-one different studies including: 1. State of New York Department of Health, Investigation of Cancer: Incidence and Residence Near 38 Landfills with Soil Gas Migration Conditions, New York State, 1980–1989 (Atlanta, Ga.: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, June 1998); 2. Lynton Baker, Renee Capouya, Carole Cenci, et al., The Landfill Testing Program: Data Analysis and Evaluation Guidelines (Sacramento, Calif.: California Air Resources Board, September 1990); 3. M. S. Goldberg et al., “Incidence of cancer among persons living near a municipal solid waste landfill site in Montreal, Quebec,” Archives of Environmental Health, vol. 50, no. 6 (November 1995); 4. L. D. Budnick et al., “Cancer and birth defects near the Drake Superfund site, Pennsylvania,” Archives of Environmental Health, vol. 39, no. 6 (November 1984); 5. K. Mallin, “Investigation of a bladder cancer cluster in northwestern Illinois,” American Journal of Epidemiology, vol. 132, no. 1, supplement (July 1990); 6. J. Griffith et al., “Cancer mortality in U.S. counties with hazardous waste sites and ground water pollution,” Archives of Environmental Health, vol. 44, no. 2 (March 1989); and 7. Martine Vrijheid, Ben Armstrong, et al., Potential Human Health Effects of Landfill Sites; Report to the North West Region of the Environment Agency (London: Environmental Epidemiology Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, March 1998).
86. Daphne Wysham, “Good News, There’s a Climate Bill—Bad News, It Stinks,” originally published by Alternet.org (no-burn.org/article.php?id=711), and Kate Sheppard, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Waxman-Markey Energy/Climate Bill,” Grist, June 3, 2009 (grist.org/article/2009–06–03-waxman-markey-bill-breakdown/).
87. “Organic Materials,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/organics/index.htm).
88. “Zero Waste: Composting,” SFEnvironment (sfenvironment.org/our_programs/topics.html?ti=6).
89. Personal correspondence with Robin Plutchok, program manager at Stopwaste.org, August 2009.
90. “Managing MSW in Nova Scotia,” BioCycle, February 1999, vol. 40, no. 2, p. 31.
91. “The State of Garbage in America” BioCycle, vol. 47, no. 4, April 2006, p. 26 (jgpress.com/archives/_free/000848.html).
92. Peter Montague, “The Modern Solution to Pollution is Dilution,” Rachel’s Democracy and Health News, no. 996, January 29, 2009 (precaution.org/lib/09/waste_dispersal.090129.htm).
93. Inventory of Sources and Environmental Releases of Dioxin-Like Compounds in the United States for the Years 1987, 1995, and 2000, final report, United States Environmental Protection Agency, EPA/600/P-03/002f, November 2006. And Waste Incineration: A Dying Technology, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives/Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance, 2003 (no-burn.org/article.php?id=276). Additional information and sources can be found at “Dioxin Homepage,” EJnet.org (ejnet.org/dioxin/).
94. Michelle Allsopp, Pat Costner, and Paul Johnston, Incineration and Human Health—State of Knowledge of the Impacts of Waste Incinerators on Human Health, Greenpeace Research Laboratories, University of Exeter, 2001; Jeremy Thompson and Honor Anthony, The Health Effects of Waste Incinerators: 4th Report, British Society for Ecological Medicine, 2006 (ecomed.org.uk/publications/reports/the-health-effects-of-waste-incinerators); M. Franchini, M. Rial, E. Buiatti, and F. Bianchi, “Health effects of exposure to waste incinerator emissions: A review of epidemiological studies,” Annali dell’Istituto Superiore di Sanità, vol. 40, no. 1, 2004, pp. 101–15; N. Floret, E. Lucot, P. M. Badot, et al., “A municipal solid waste incinerator as the single dominant point source of PCDD/Fs in an area of increased non-Hodgkin’
s lymphoma incidence,” Chemosphere vol. 68, no. 8, 2007, pp.1419–26; T. Tango, T. Fujita, T. Tanihata, et al., “Risk of adverse reproductive outcomes associated with proximity to municipal solid waste incinerators with high dioxin emission levels in Japan,” Journal of Epidemiology, vol. 14, no. 3, 2004, pp. 83–93.
95. Paul Connett, from his white paper “Waste Management as if the Future Mattered,” 1990.
96. Personal correspondence with Paul Connett, June 2008.
97. Personal correspondence with Mike Ewall, May 2009.
98. Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives/Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance website: no-burn.org.
99. “Incinerators in Disguise,” Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives/Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance (no-burn.org/article.php?list=type&type=132).
100. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, eGRID 2000 database, cited in Zero Waste for Zero Warming: GAIA’s Statement of Concern on Waste and Climate Change, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives/Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance, December 2008 (no-burn.org/article.php?id=567).
101. Sherry Greenfield, “Trip to PA convinces Jenkins that Frederick should build incinerator,” Gazette.net, May 20, 2009 (gazette.net/stories/05202009/
frednew174253_32537.shtml).
102. Brenda Platt, Resources up in Flames, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives/Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance, April 2004, p. 12 (no-burn.org/downloads/Resources up in Flames.pdf).
103. Wasting and Recycling in the United States, Grass Roots Recycling Network, 2000 (grrn.org/order/w2kinfo.html).
104. Information packet from a visit to the Davis Street Transfer Center in May 2009, compared to the data provided in Greenfield, “Trip to PA convinces Jenkins that Frederick should build incinerator.”
105. Platt, Resources up in Flames, p. 14.
106. T. Rand, J. Haukohl, and U. Marxen, Municipal Solid Waste Incineration: Requirements for a Successful Project, World Bank technical paper no. 462, The World Bank, June 2000, p. 25.
107. Personal correspondence with Paul Connett, June 2008.
108. “What is TURA,” Toxics Use Reduction Institute (turi.org/turadata/what_is_tura).
109. Jay Pateakos, “‘Green’ Light: City company recognized for helping environment,” The Herald News, June 8, 2009 (heraldnews.com/homepage/x313680023/Green-light).
110. Ken Geiser and Joel Tickner, “When haste makes toxic waste,” The Boston Globe, July 14, 2009 (boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/
oped/articles/2009/07/14/when_haste_
makes_toxic_waste/).
111. “A Basic Guide to Exporting—International Legal Considerations,” Unz and Co. (unzco.com/basicguide/c9.html).
112. Halina Ward, “Corporate accountability in search of a treaty?” briefing paper, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, May 2002 (chathamhouse.org.uk/files/3033_corporate
_accountability_insights.pdf).
113. “Thor Chemicals and Mercury Exposure in Cato-Ridge, South Africa” (umich.edu/~snre492/Jones/thorchem.htm), using data from the series of articles by Bill Lambrecht for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch between 1989 and 1994.
114. Ibid.
115. Ibid.
116. “A Thor Chronology,” groundWork, vol. 9, no. 3, September 2007 (groundwork.org.za/Newsletters/September2007.pdf).
117. “South Africa: Chemical cleanup begins,” Pambazuka News, iss. 168, August 5, 2004 (pambazuka.org/en/category/environment/23609).
118. Tony Carnie, “Poison concerns for Inanda Dam,” The Mercury [South Africa], October 15, 2008.
119. Advising and Monitoring the Clean Up and Disposal of Mercury Waste in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa: The Case of Thor Chemicals, groundWork, May 2005 (Zeromercury.org/projects/Proposal_EEB_
Thor_Chemicals_Final_revised
_new_webvs.pdf).
120. James Ridgeway with Gaelle Drevet, “How Thousands of Tons of Philadelphia’s Toxic Waste Ended Up on a Haitian Beach and What the City of New York Is Doing About It,” The Village Voice, January 13, 1998 (ban.org/ban_news/dumping_on_Haiti.html).
121. Personal correspondence with Senior Litigation Counsel Howard Stewart, of the U.S. Department of Justice, Environmental Crimes Section, June 1989.
122. Website of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal: basel.int/.
123. “Milestones in the Convention’s History,” Basel Convention (basel.int/convention/basics.html).
124. Heather Rogers, Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage (New York: New Press, 2005), p. 170.
125. Neil Seldman, “The New Recycling Movement, Part 1: Recycling Changes to Meet New Challenges,” Institute for Local Self-Reliance, October 2003 (ilsr.org/recycling/newmovement1.html).
126. Municipal Solid Waste in the United States 2007 Facts and Figures, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, p. 1.
127. Ibid., p. 16.
128. “Recycling Means Business,” Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ilsr.org/recycling/recyclingmeansbusiness.html).
129. “Mobil Chemical Corporation,” abstract, World Resources Institute Sustainable Enterprise Program, 1992 (pdf.wri.org/bell/abstracts/case_1–56973–155–1_abstract_version_english.pdf). Another Mobil spokesperson said, “[Degradable bags] are not an answer to landfill crowding or littering... Degradability is just a marketing tool... We’re talking out of both sides of our mouths because we want to sell bags. I don’t think the average consumer even knows what degradability means. Customers don’t care if it solves the solid-waste problem. It makes them feel good.” Quoted in Carl Deal, The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations (Berkeley: Odonian Press, 1993), p. 9.
130. “Mobil, FTC to settle ‘environmental’ claims for its Hefty trash bags,” Boston Globe, July 28, 1992. Also see Keith Schneider, “Guides on Environmental Ad Claims,” New York Times, July 29, 1992.
131. Rogers, Gone Tomorrow, p. 174.
132. Personal correspondence with Paul Connett, June 2008.
133. Anne Underwood, “10 Fixes for the Planet,” Newsweek, April 14, 2008 (newsweek.com/id/130625?tid=relatedcl%20).
134. “What Is Zero Waste?” Grass Roots Recycling Network (grrn.org/zerowaste/zerowaste_faq.html).
135. Personal correspondence with Monica Wilson, international co-coordinator for Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives/Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance, August 2009.
136. Brenda Platt, David Ciplet, Kate M. Bailey, and Eric Lombardi, Stop Trashing the Climate, Institute for Local-Self Reliance, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives/Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance, and Eco-Cycle, June 2008, p. 2 (stoptrashingtheclimate.org/fullreport_
stoptrashingtheclimate.pdf).
137. “Milestones on the Zero Waste Journey,” Zero Waste New Zealand Trust (zerowaste.co.nz/default,724.sm).
138. John Coté, “S.F. OKs toughest recycling law in U.S.,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 10, 2009 (sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/10/MN09183NV8.DTL).
139. Ibid.
140. Zero Waste Kovalam website: zerowastekovalam.org.
141. From a speech by Jayakumar Chelaton at a meeting of international waste activists in Penang, Malaysia, in 2003.
Epilogue: Writing the New Story
1. Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), p. 20.
2. Ibid., p. 21.
3. Colin Beavan, post from the No Impact Man blog on March 21, 2008 (noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2008/03/like-falling-of.html). See his book for more: Colin Beavan, No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).
4. Michael Maniates, “Going Green? Easy Doesn’t Do It,” The Washington Post, November 22, 2007 (washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/21/
AR2007112101856.html).
5. John Talberth, Clifford Cobb, and Noah Slattery, The Genui
ne Progress Indicator 2006,” Redefining Progress, p. 9 (rprogress.org/publications/2007/GPI%202006.pdf).
6. Personal correspondence with John Talberth, July 2009.
7. Associated Press, “Global Arms Spending Up, Study Shows,” The New York Times, June 9, 2009 (query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E2DD1530F93AA35755C0A96F9C8B63).
8. National Priorities Project website: nationalpriorities.org.
9. The Happy Planet Index 2.0: Why good lives don’t have to cost the earth, The New Economics Foundation, 2009, p. 28.
10. National Priorities Project Cost of War counters: costofwar.com.
11. Ibid.
12. Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Amazon Culture Withers as Food Dries Up,” The New York Times, July 24, 2009 (nytimes.com/2009/07/25/science/earth/25tribe.html).
13. Sarah van Gelder, “The Next Reformation,” an interview with Paul Hawken, In Context: A Quarterly of Humane Sustainable Culture, no. 41, Summer 1995 (context.org/ICLIB/IC41/Hawken1.htm).
14. Lester Brown, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008), p. 7.
15. Personal correspondence with Dave Batker, July 2009.
16. Juliet Schor, “Downshifting to a Carbon Friendly Economy,” in Less Is More: Embracing Simplicity for a Healthy Planet, a Caring Economy and Lasting Happiness (Canada: New Society Publishers, 2009), p. 231.
17. “Americans Eager to Take Back Their Time,” Take Back Your Time Poll highlights, Center for a New American Dream, August 2003 (newdream.org/about/polls/time poll.php).
18. Schor, “Downshifting to a Carbon Friendly Economy,” p. 233.
19. David Wann, “Why Isn’t This Empire Sustainable?” in Less Is More: Embracing Simplicity for a Healthy Planet, a Caring Economy and Lasting Happiness (Canada: New Society Publishers, 2009), p. 217.
20. “More of What Matters Poll,” Center for a New American Dream, September 2004 (newdream.org/about/polls.php).
21. Influenced especially by the work of Paul Hawken, the Global Scenario Group convened by the Stockholm Environment Institute, Tim Jackson of the Sustainable Development Commission, and ecological economist Hermann Daly.