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.
Visit Robin Nagle’s website
Follow Robin on Instagram and Bluesky
Read Robin’s book Picking Up, an ethnography of New York City's Department of Sanitation
A donation was made to the Sanitation Foundation
More episode sources and links
Smologies (short, classroom-safe) episodes
Other episodes you may enjoy: Oceanology (OCEANS), Urban Rodentology (SEWER RATS), Space Archaeology (SPACE JUNK), Critical Ecology (SOCIAL SYSTEMS + ENVIRONMENT), Futurology (THE FUTURE), Disasterology (DISASTERS), Ursinology (BEARS), Eschatology (THE APOCALYPSE), Conservation Technology (EARTH SAVING), Scatology (POOP), Agnotology (IGNORANCE), Xylology (LUMBER)
Transcripts and bleeped episodes
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Editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media
Managing Director: Susan Hale
Scheduling Producer: Noel Dilworth
Transcripts by Aveline Malek
Website by Kelly R. Dwyer
Theme song by Nick Thorburn