Waste Land

What people might picture when they think of "Made in America" ... might not look like the "Made in America" we have today.The U.S. does have a domestic manufacturing industry, including a garment manufacturing industry. In today's episode: We buy a garment made by factory worker ... Show More

Government. The Big G. We like to imagine the free market and the invisible hand as being independent from political influence. But Nobel laureate, Simon Johnson, says that influence has been there since the birth of economics. Call it political economy. Call it government and bu ... Show More

If we think about the economic effects of President Donald Trumps big taxing and spending and domestic policy bill, we can roughly sum it up in one line. It goes something like this: We will make many big tax cuts permanent and pay for those tax cuts by cutting Medicaid and a few ... Show More

For many, recycling feels like a tangible way to personally combat climate change and to positively affect the environment. But after a years long investigation, NPR correspondent Laura Sullivan finds that reality is generally the opposite: Only a small fraction of plastic is ult ... Show More

We talk about the over-reliance on recycling rather than reducing the use of plastics 

Plastic is everywhere. We know we should cut down on it where we can, but is plastic ever the answer? In this episode, a whole world of plastic you never knew about. Starting with: which bag is best: paper, plastic, or cotton? The answer might surprise you. Dan breaks down the pr ... Show More

  We have been recycling for decades, yet only 9% of the world's plastic has ever been successfully recycled.In this episode, we ask ourselves the heretical question, "is plastic recycling actually worth it?"A brief history of plastic usageHow much plastic do we really use?The us ... Show More

En 2022, le monde a produit 500 millions de tonnes de plastique. Et si on continue sur cette trajectoire, ce sera deux fois plus en 2060. Plus fou encore : la moitié des plastiques qui existent dans le monde ont été fabriqués depuis l’an 2000. En une vingtaine d’années tout juste ... Show More

Every single second, 20,000 single-use drinking bottles are sold around the world. That is more than a million pieces of non-biodegradable rubbish produced every minute. And as demand grows in developing economies, so will the mountains of waste, with much of it ending up in the ... Show More

Could recycling to save money be the answer to saving the planet? For decades, wealthy countries have been shipping their waste to China for sorting and recycling. Now China is getting wealthier, it no longer wants to be a dumping ground. So could we take another look at the cold ... Show More

Scientists didn’t think it was possible for life to thrive in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Then, they found some anemones ... and some huge questions about entire new ecosystems built on plastic.If you want to hear more about plastic in the ocean, we have another episode abou ... Show More

Plastic food packaging often seems obviously wasteful. But when Jacques Brandenberger invented cellophane, consumers loved it. It helped supermarkets go self-service, and it was so popular Cole Porter put it in a song lyric. Nowadays, people worry that plastic doesn’t get recycle ... Show More