Discard Anthropology (GARBAGE) with Dr. Robin Nagle
Landfills! Treasures in the trash! Corporate conspiracies! Composting! An instantly classic conversation with the incredibly knowledgeable, frank and wonderful Dr. Robin Nagle of New York University’s Liberal Studies! She is a clinical professor, author, TED speaker and former New York City sanitation worker and truly the best person on Earth to trash talk with. We cover what you can and can’t actually recycle, sticky mustard bottles, drugs in the trash, Swedish Death Cleaning, mobsters and landfills, Bitcoin in the dump, the future of garbage and exactly how screwed we are. Enjoy.
Listen via Stitcher, Apple, Podbay, Podcast Addict, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Visit Robin Nagle’s website
Follow Robin on Instagram and Twitter
Read Robin’s book Picking Up, an ethnography of New York City's Department of Sanitation
A donation was made to the Sanitation Foundation
Links to things we discussed:
Teen death rates in urban vs. rural
Video: “Community Problem” trash film from the 1950s
“Is this the end of recycling?”
Treasures in the Trash =: Nelson Molina Collection
“Office of Invisibility” art project
New York asking folks to take trash out between certain hours
Let’s go to the dump and shoot rats
New York City bodies and dumping grounds
Roy De Meo: gangster who disposed of 200 bodies in a dump
Keep America Beautiful wikipedia
Artist in Residency at the New York Department of Sanitation
Americans throw away $62 million in coins every year
Video: Robin’s student’s film, “One Man’s Trash” directed and produced by Kelly Adams
Video: “Treasures in the Trash” on YouTube
"COMMUNITY PROBLEM" 1950s TRASH COLLECTION & WASTE MANAGEMENT VINTAGE FILM by CATERPILLAR INC. 52404
Barren Island’s Treasure Trove in the New Yorker
New York’s ‘Glass Bottle Beach’ Closed After Survey Finds Radioactive Waste
Spinning the Bottle: California’s landmark recycling system is in crisis
Low-temperature mineralization of perfluorocarboxylic acids
What can you recycle in California?
Keep America Beautiful: The Crying Indian (1970)
When you throw away 8,000 Bitcoin in 2013, then search a dump for years
How Tuberculosis Shaped Victorian Fashion
More episodes you might like:
Urban Rodentology (SEWER RATS)
Space Archaeology (SPACE JUNK)
Critical Ecology (SOCIAL SYSTEMS + ENVIRONMENT)
Conservation Technology (EARTH SAVING)
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Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media
Transcripts by Emily White of The Wordary
Website by Kelly R. Dwyer
Theme song by Nick Thorburn