A recent PBS NewsHour segment highlights how many Americans’ discarded cars, laptops, and clothes often end up in developing countries. While millions of people repair or resell those items to make a living, experts and environmental groups warn that this creates a toxic trifecta of waste, causing severe harm to land, coastlines, and human health.
NewsHour spoke to Kate O’Neill, a professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, about the issue. As an expert in global environmental governance and the global/local politics of waste and recycling, O’Neill’s research addresses how—and how well—the global community manages complex, unpredictable, and distributionally unjust problems like waste and chemical pollution.
“You have got to kind of create jobs, create markets, create ways in which we move from a waste economy to a repair and reuse economy, and that can be global,” said O’Neill, who also serves as the Associate Dean for Instruction and Student Affairs in Rausser College of Natural Resources. Watch the full news story below (O’Neill’s comments begin at 6:46).