Recycling Paperback / softback
by Finn Arne (Professor, University of Stavanger) Jørgensen
Part of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series series
Paperback / softback
Description
An overview of recycling as an activity and a process, following different materials through the waste stream. Is there a point to recycling? Is recycling even good for the environment? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Finn Arne Jorgensen answers (drumroll, please): it depends.
From a technical point of view, recycling is a series of processes-collecting, sorting, processing, manufacturing.
Recycling also has a cultural component; at its core, recycling is about transformation and value, turning material waste into something useful-plastic bags into patio furniture, plastic bottles into T-shirts.
Jorgensen offers an accessible and engaging overview of recycling as an activity and as a process at the intersection of the material and the ideological.
Jorgensen follows a series of materials as they move back and forth between producer and consumer, continually transforming in form and value, in a never-ceasing journey toward becoming waste.
He considers organic waste and cultural contamination; the history of recyclable writing surfaces from papyrus to newsprint; discarded clothing as it moves from the the Global North to the Global South; the shifting fate of glass bottles; the efficiency of aluminum recycling; the many types of plastic and the difficulties of informed consumer choice; e-waste and technological obsolescence; and industrial waste.
Finally, re-asking the question posed by John Tierney in an infamous 1996 New York Times article, "is recycling garbage?" Jorgensen argues that recycling is necessary-as both symbolic action and physical activity that has a tangible effect on the real world.
Information
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Out of stock
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:208 pages, 1 b&w illus.; 2 Illustrations, unspecified
- Publisher:MIT Press Ltd
- Publication Date:12/11/2019
- Category:
- ISBN:9780262537827
Information
-
Out of stock
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:208 pages, 1 b&w illus.; 2 Illustrations, unspecified
- Publisher:MIT Press Ltd
- Publication Date:12/11/2019
- Category:
- ISBN:9780262537827