Monday, 8 February 2021 with Dr. Myra Hird
During her talk Dr. Hird suggested a few resources listed below.
Canadians generate more waste per capita than any other country on earth. Most of this waste is generated by industry, in particular mining. How can we make industry responsible for their waste instead of consumers? What is the life cycle of plastic consumer goods? Is recycling an effective way of reducing carbon emissions? What about reduce and reuse?
Myra Hird is an award-winning professor in the School of Environmental Studies at Queen’s university where she runs a research program called Wasteflow. She is recognized as a distinguished interdisciplinary scholar with an international reputation for her multifaceted, collaborative investigations into science studies and environmental issues. Dr. Hird frequently appears in the news media commenting on waste issues.
Resources:
Canada’s Waste Flows, a New book by Myra J. Hird
From shipments of Canadian waste rotting in developing countries to overflowing landfills and ineffective recycling programs, Canada is facing a waste crisis. Canadians are becoming increasingly aware that waste is an acute environmental and human health issue – and a complex one, the solutions to which are often contradictory.
Purchase a copy here: https://www.mqup.ca/canada-s-waste-flows-products-9780228005285.php
Waste Flow – Queen’s University research program with principal investigator Myra J. Hird
Our Canada’s Waste Flow research program asks these central questions:
1. What is waste?
- What do we do with our waste?
- What is our waste future?
Read more about research into Canada’s Waste Flow at: https://www.wasteflow.ca
Beyond the Blue Box is one of Canada’s longest standing and most successful community based waste reduction and reuse centres.
For 28 years, it has been accepting donations of reusable items from the community and diverting them from Northumberland County landfill sites. It does this by operating two bustling stores on Covert Street in Cobourg.
With the help of community volunteers, our not-for-profit operation collects, sorts and resells donated items for prices that are just enough to cover operating costs.
Read more about it at https://beyondthebluebox.com/
Crapshoot – The Gamble with Our Wastes
A video, 52 minutes, Directed by Jeff McKay
Looks at the failure of our current sewage disposal system and presents alternatives.
Watch video here: http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/craps.html
Recycling Reconsidered
The Present Failure and Future Promise of Environmental Action in the United States
How the success and popularity of recycling has diverted attention from the steep environmental costs of manufacturing the goods we consume and discard.
Recycling is widely celebrated as an environmental success story. The accomplishments of the recycling movement can be seen in municipal practice, a thriving private recycling industry, and widespread public support and participation. In the United States, more people recycle than vote. But, as Samantha MacBride points out in this book, the goals of recycling—saving the earth (and trees), conserving resources, and greening the economy—are still far from being realized. The vast majority of solid wastes are still burned or buried. MacBride argues that, since the emergence of the recycling movement in 1970, manufacturers of products that end up in waste have successfully prevented the implementation of more onerous, yet far more effective, forms of sustainable waste policy. Recycling as we know it today generates the illusion of progress while allowing industry to maintain the status quo and place responsibility on consumers and local government.
You can purchase a copy here: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/recycling-reconsidered
As the World Burns
50 SIMPLE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO STAY IN DENIAL#A GRAPHIC NOVEL
By DERRICK JENSEN and STEPHANIE MCMILLAN
Two of America’s most talented activists team up to deliver a bold and hilarious satire of modern environmental policy in this fully illustrated graphic novel. The U.S. government gives robot machines from space permission to eat the earth in exchange for bricks of gold. A one-eyed bunny rescues his friends from a corporate animal-testing laboratory. And two little girls figure out the secret to saving the world from both of its enemies (and it isn’t by using energy-efficient light bulbs or biodiesel fuel). As the World Burns will inspire you to do whatever it takes to stop ecocide before it’s too late.
You can purchase a copy here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/213972/as-the-world-burns-by-derrick-jensen-and-stephanie-mcmillan/
Economic Study of the
Canadian Plastic Industry, Markets and Waste
Summary Report to
Environment and Climate Change Canada
Available here: https://www.taxpayer.com/media/En4-366-1-2019-eng.pdf
