Latest news with #Clapp
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
'I could not be happier' - Cumbrian castle employee wins Unsung Hero award
An employee at Muncaster Castle has been recognised with an Unsung Hero award. Hannah Clapp won the award at the VisitEngland Awards for Excellence 2025 finals. Her hard work and behind-the-scenes contributions at the castle were celebrated at the ceremony in Brighton. Hannah Clapp with her Unsung Hero award at the VisitEngland Awards for Excellence 2025 finals (Image: Supplied) This national achievement follows Ms Clapp's previous success at the 2024 Cumbria Tourism Awards, where she won the regional Unsung Hero title. She was then able to secure a place in the VisitEngland finals. Ms Clapp, head of experiences at Muncaster Castle, said: "I am absolutely delighted that all the hard work we put in at Muncaster has been recognised at a national level in the tourism Oscars. "I could not be happier. "It is such an exciting time to be at Muncaster and a huge thank you to everyone for their support." The team at Muncaster Castle said they are proud of Hannah's achievement. A spokesperson for the Cumbrian castle said: "Her recognition at this level is a testament not only to her personal commitment but also to the passion and hard work of everyone working to share Muncaster Magic with the world."
Medscape
21-05-2025
- Health
- Medscape
New Tool IDs Women at High Risk for Postpartum Depression
LOS ANGELES — Researchers have developed and externally validated a simple, machine learning model that can help identify women at a high risk for postpartum depression (PPD) immediately after childbirth, even before they leave the hospital. Untreated PPD is a significant contributor to maternal morbidity and mortality. It's estimated to play a role in up to 10% of maternal deaths by suicide. Earlier identification will improve the health of patients as they won't have to wait to begin treatment for 6 or 8 weeks after delivery, when symptoms might become much more severe, lead investigator Mark A. Clapp, MD, maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, told Medscape Medical News . 'It's an opportunity for collaboration between obstetricians and psychiatrists to ensure high-risk patients are seen promptly,' said Clapp. The findings were presented on May 19 at American Psychiatric Association (APA) 2025 Annual Meeting and simultaneously published online in The American Journal of Psychiatry. A Common Problem PPD, which can affect up to 15% of women after childbirth, is linked to an increased risk for suicide and self-harm. The condition has a profound impact on a woman's physical and mental health, ability to function, and relationships with her newborn and family. Until 2023, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommended first PPD screening at the postpartum visit. ACOG now recommends screening at the initial prenatal visit, later in pregnancy, and at the postpartum visit. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) has traditionally been used to screen for the condition. Clapp noted only an estimated 60% of women appear at their postpartum visit, 'so about 4 in 10 patients are actually not presenting for postpartum care,' he said. The study included 29,168 women (media age, 33 years; 70% White) with available EPDS scores and no recent history of a depressive disorder, who gave birth at two large academic hospitals (Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital), and six surrounding community-based hospitals sharing a common electronic health record (EHR) system. A PPD risk stratification model based on EHRs of women having a baby in a hospital makes sense given the widespread use of EHRs in healthcare facilities, where over 98% of pregnant women deliver, said Clapp. Researchers divided participants into a model development group (15,018 participants delivering at five hospitals) and a model validation group (14,150 participants delivering at three hospitals). All information for the model was readily available through EHRs, including maternal medical history, medication use, pregnancy history, and demographic factors. Researchers also incorporated other factors known or hypothesized to influence the risk for PPD such as maternal age; education level; marital status; primary language; public or private insurance; and pregnancy factors such as gestational age, mode of delivery, number of prenatal visits, and length of hospital stay. The primary outcome was PPD, defined as the presence of a mood disorder, an antidepressant prescription, or a positive screen on the EPDS (score ≥ 13) within 6 months of delivery. For both the training and testing sets, researchers assessed model discrimination by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC), as well as positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) using a screen-positive threshold and a set specificity of 90%. High Specificity Of the total number of participants, 9.2% met at least one criterion for PPD within 6 months of delivering their baby. Top factors contributing to the risk for PPD included anxiety/fear-related disorders, antiemetic use, headache disorders, gastrointestinal disorders, and prenatal EPDS score. For the primary model, the AUROC was 0.750 (95% CI, 0.721-0.778), indicating the model had good discrimination. The Brier score was 0.073 (95% CI, 0.067-0.080), indicating the model was well calibrated. At the set threshold of 90% specificity, the PPV was 24.4% (95% CI, 21.3%-27.6%) and the NPV was 94.7% (95% CI, 93.9%-95.5%). In the external validity cohort, the AUROC was 0.721 (95% CI, 0.709-0.736) and the Brier score was 0.087 (95% CI, 0.083-0.091). At a specificity of 90%, the PPV was 28.8% (95% CI, 26.7%-30.8%) and the NPV was 92.2% (95% CI, 91.8%-92.7%). 'Using the predefined specificity, we were able to identify about 30% of individuals who were predicted to be at high risk where the diagnosis of postpartum depression occurred,' said Clapp. 'Remember, the overall population risk was about 10%, but of those that we flagged as high risk, the rate of postpartum depression was 30% — or three times the population rate.' In addition to distinguishing between higher- and lower-risk populations, the model performed similarly across patient subgroups by race, ethnicity, age, and hospital type, suggesting the model could be applied equitably in diverse populations, said Clapp. The researchers hope to pair the model with tailored interventions, which in some cases could merely involve a phone call during the postpartum period, said Clapp. 'People at high risk for postpartum depression benefit from a simple phone call, so having a nurse or doctor call them to say, 'Hey, how are you doing?'' can make a big difference, he noted. A limitation of the study is that it only reflects practice patterns in eastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire in a single health system. Other limitations were that most patients were White, college-educated, and privately insured, and misclassification may have occurred, as is the case with any study using diagnostic codes. 'We're working to integrate this model into our electronic health record to facilitate real-time predictions' of high PPD risk, said Clapp. The team is also investigating how the model can be used to reduce the incidence, severity, and consequences of PPD. Clinically Important Tool Commenting for Medscape Medical News , reproductive psychiatrist Misty Richards, MD, associate clinical professor, Department of Psychiatry and OB-GYN, University of California at Los Angeles, noted that PPD is the most common complication of childbirth, highlighting the need for better diagnostics. 'We're talking about 1 in 5 women', many of whom, especially those with no history of depression, 'don't tend to get diagnosed,' said Richards, who was not part of the research. 'We try to catch people with postpartum depression before it becomes a forest fire' but 'oftentimes we miss it,' she said. 'Having predictive tools like thisis very, very important clinically, so we can catch things early.' Only one medication — zuranolone, a GABA A receptor–positive allosteric modulator — is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for PPD, said Richards. Ned Kalin, MD, professor and chair, Department of Psychiatry, and director of the HealthEmotions Research Institute, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin, who was not part of the study, highlighted in a press briefing that patients in the study who developed PPD didn't have a history of depression. 'These are people that otherwise would probably go completely undetected, so this is really a critical advance in that regard.'
Daily Maverick
07-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Maverick
It's time to get territorial — for food security, jobs and the environment
A study in 2019 found crops like rice and wheat are declining due to the climate crisis, while sorghum, which is more drought-resistant, had an increased harvest. With the climate crisis, macroeconomic factors (like the US-proposed 30% duty on South African citrus) and non-communicable diseases, agroecological farming with diverse food and localised markets is a way to protect against shocks to the system. In other words, fewer trucks and ships travelling long distances, fewer fast food outlets and food deserts in townships, more rural and urban farmer cooperatives, and more local markets with affordable varieties of produce. We are facing three pandemics: undernutrition, obesity, and climate change, warns the 2019 Lancet Commission on Obesity report. Conventional food systems are industrialised global production and marketing chains, with the free circulation of ultraprocessed products, according to a 2022 article on territorial markets in Brazil. This system is connected to malnutrition, obesity, environmental damage, and inequalities, it emphasised. To transform the food production chain, strengthening more territorialised food systems is one proposed solution. 'Territorial markets are close-to-home food supply chains that operate within a specific region or community. They can be quite diverse in form — such as farmers' markets, street vendors, cooperatives, and public distribution systems — and they primarily sell food from small-scale producers, processors, and vendors,' said Jennifer Clapp, a professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub, to Daily Maverick. Local markets, less industry concentration 'Territorial markets… support livelihoods for small-scale producers and sustain diverse food cultures. They improve access to diverse and affordable food, especially for marginalised communities. And they are resilient — fostering biodiverse small-scale farming and being agile in the face of shocks,' Clapp told Daily Maverick. The study in Brazil echoed the sentiment that territorial markets are more resilient in the face of adversity. It found that placing local actors/institutions and resources at the core of rural development reinforced localised food systems centred in small circuits of production-consumption. This adds to sustainability by shortening supply chains and diversifies the local economy. Agricultural economists were sceptical about whether territorial markets would be able to ensure a supply of food for urban areas, but they were locked into a particular way of thinking about farming, said Scott Drimie, Southern African Food Lab co-director. Agroecologically based territorial markets were able to contribute to building resilient food systems, he added. Agroecology was about diverse livelihood systems, Drimie said. An economy of scale could be met with many smaller producers aggregating — if we were not obsessed with supplying vast volumes of a particular commodity. It was more about meeting people where they were than imposing a system that included fewer and fewer farmers, he said. 'We've got huge potential with what the possibilities are if we invested and enabled agroecology to exist, particularly around notions of circularity within these smaller territories,' said Drimie. 'There are a lot of synergies between agroecology and territorial markets. Territorial markets offer suitable market outlets for small-scale agroecological producers, which secures demand for diverse and sustainably produced foods,' Clapp told Daily Maverick. 'Linking agroecology and territorial markets works to rebalance uneven power dynamics in food systems by mutually supporting the livelihoods of agroecological producers and local food processors and traders.' Import, exports Agricultural exports from South Africa came to $13,7-billion in 2024, up 3% from the previous year due to an increase in volume and higher prices. The top exported products in 2024 were citrus, grapes, maize, apples and pears, nuts, fruit juices, sugar, berries, dates, pineapples, avocados, apricots and peaches, and beef. If South Africa is removed from the African Growth and Opportunity Act, more than R1-billion in export revenue of citrus could be lost, and about 35,000 jobs in the supply chain. South Africa exported 44% to the region, including maize, maize meal, wheat, sugar, apples and pears, fruit juices, soybean oil, sunflower oil, oilcake and rice. Asia and the Middle East amounted to 21% of exports, the European Union was 19%, the Americas region 6% and the rest of the world, including the United Kingdom, was 10%. South Africa imported $7,6-billion, up by 8% year-on-year. The increase came from higher value and volume of major products South Africa imports, like wheat, palm oil, rice, and poultry. South Africa does not have the right climatic conditions to grow rice and palm oil, and imports nearly half of the annual consumption of wheat. The Free State used to be a major wheat-growing region of the country but production declined over time because of the unfavourable weather conditions and profitability challenges of wheat. Imports are around 20% of the annual domestic consumption of poultry. With an increase of 2°C or more in average global temperatures, it will immediately affect crops such as wheat (which is not heat tolerant) in places like the Sahel or South Asia. Increasing temperatures and carbon levels increase the arsenic in rice, a study has found, explaining that exposure to inorganic arsenic can increase the risk of cancers, diabetes, and heart disease. S taple crops, unstable world In a dossier by the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation, Clapp said that food crises repeating over the past 50 years pointed to the systemic vulnerability of the global industrial food system, with three standout features: Industrial food produced based on a narrow selection of staple crops. An imbalance between a small number of exporting states and many import-dependent states. High financialised and concentrated global agrifood markets. Industrial farming relied on mechanisation, chemical fertilisers, pesticides and a limited variety of genetically altered seeds. This, posited Clapp, createsd vulnerability in the system in many ways, encouraging farmers to focus on staple crops in large-scale uniform fields. The narrow focus on staple crops had become so extreme that today just three cereal grains — wheat, maize, and rice — made up nearly half of human diets and accounted for 86% of all cereal exports, Clapp said. With the addition of soy, together these crops accounted for about two-thirds of human caloric intake. If any disruption happened to these crops, global food security was threatened. A 2019 study from the University of Minnesota found crops like rice and wheat were declining due to the climate crisis, while sorghum, which was more drought-resistant, had an increased harvest. Five countries made up at least 72% of wheat, maize, rice and soy crops production. Seven countries, plus the EU, accounted for about 90% of the world's wheat exports, while four countries accounted for more than 80% of the world's maize exports, Clapp wrote. Import-dependence had intensified over the past 50 years, said Clapp. Although countries did produce staple grains, the majority did not produce enough to satisfy demand. They could not compete with highly industrialised agro-export countries, she wrote. African countries focused on producing export goods like coffee, tea and cocoa, buying staples on the global market, due to the structural adjustment programmes imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in the 80s and 90s, Clapp added. Food as a commons to a commodity Large investors reaped huge profits on the financialised future markets with the trade in grain, wrote Clapp. These markets were prone to extreme food price volatility; especially when investors flooded the markets when the food system was most at risk. Lately, there had also been a weakening of rules for financial investment in these markets. Investors rushed into commodity markets just as prices rose, pushing grain prices up further, she explained in the dossier. The ABCD companies — Archer Daniels, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus — controlled anywhere from 50 to 70% of the global grain trade, plus considerable parts of the food processing chain. They'd had record profits in recent years, as food prices had soared, she wrote. 'Territorial markets already feed as much as 70% of the world's population, but they are under threat from the constant march of corporate-controlled food supply chains,' said Clapp to Daily Maverick. 'In many countries current policy frameworks tend to prioritise corporate supply chains and industrial export-oriented agriculture via subsidies, infrastructure, and tax breaks. These kinds of policies need to change — and such a shift is especially relevant in this current global moment amid a global trade war,' said Clapp to Daily Maverick. 'It's important for governments to support territorial food systems through measures such as state purchasing schemes that privilege small-scale producers, directing subsidies to support infrastructure for local markets, and working to break up large-scale corporate monopolies in food systems that threaten the livelihoods of local food producers and traders. Governments can also do more to support the expansion of local agroecological food production to supply such markets,' she said. This is where food sovereignty comes in — the movement asserts that food is a basic human right, not a commodity. Conventional to conservation to agroecological: a continuum Discussions around changing agrifood systems were polarising, Drimie said. In a transition there was a continuum of different kinds of agriculture; there was conventional agriculture with heavy chemical inputs, and then there was commercial farms moving towards conservation agriculture, which stopped overplowing and reduced fertiliser use. He cited the SmartAgri Plan, developed due to climate change threats facing the Western Cape. The objective was to ensure a low-carbon, climate-resilient agricultural sector in the Western Cape. When Southern African Food Labs began to engage with farming communities across the country, it found that many farmers engaged in conservation agriculture, including forming 'clubs' in lieu of state support, to share information. Although still highly mechanised in a highly concentrated system, he said there was a change taking place. 'That's just to recognise that agroecology is… what you can get to if you fully transition in terms of this this way of farming, this way of of engaging the environment in order to farm that is deeply about the soil, about nature, about water, about people, about participation and inclusion,' said Drimie. The Woza Nami ('come with me') project, in Inchanga, KwaZulu-Natal, focused on supporting 125 small-scale farmers including small co-operatives and backyard gardeners and local municipality officers based at the eThekweni Agroecology Unit to transition to agroecological farming. This was accompanied by a nutrition education programme and creating local community markets. In terms of nutrition, the diet in most financially stressed households in Inchanga was high in starch, mainly pap, with little fruit and vegetables. Wild crops like amadumbe are grown, which were part of traditional diets in KwaZulu-Natal, as well as maize, carrots, spinach, onions, pumpkins, green peppers and lettuce. The intention was to enable the Inchanga farmers to sell their produce at schools, community facilities, and via bakkie vendors and informal traders. Drimie said they recognised that there were real limitations with seeds and seedlings, as it was very difficult to get open pollinated seeds, which was when pollination took place by natural mechanisms. Open-pollinated plants were more genetically diverse, causing greater variation within plant populations and adapting to local conditions and climate. In northern KZN, with Biowatch support, local communities were using indigenous methodologies. While not focusing on creating markets, they were focusing on ways of planting, cultivation, custodianship, and farmers' cooperatives. This then led to them finding their own markets, he said. Opportunities 'That's the beauty of this — within mixed livelihood systems, agroecology provides so much in terms of opportunities to work in different ways, and then to either operate in a market system at the neighborhood or community level, or to then look further afield,' said Drimie. Southern Africa Food Lab travelled to an initiative called Thanda, in Umzumbe, KwaZulu-Natal. It's an area under traditional authority, surrounded by vast sugarcane fields. Some fields have gone through restitution, returned to people who were dispossessed through apartheid policies and laws. Currently, the fields are still linked to the sugar industry. The area included many valleys that did not have sugarcane growing, he said. A small example of a territorial market was growing there, where people were farming in different ways with support from Thanda. 'An indicator of the impact that Thanda's agricultural programme has had on local food security is that 85% of the total vegetables grown over the past eight years has remained within the local community. That means it's not only the food circling in the area, it's also the value associated with that food — so the exchange of money.' The farmers had a guaranteed market, as Thanda was taking the produce to early childhood development centres, primary schools, and high schools. Farmers also sold within neighbourhoods and on the side of the road. ' What they've been able to do is demonstrate the possibilities of a territorial market, and in that the agency of the individual farmers that are working together in co-ops… but having a set of options in terms of what they want to focus on in different markets.' DM
New York Times
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Dirty Little Secret Hiding in Your Garbage Can
Here's a way to while away a Sunday: Open up 'Waste Wars' — the journalist Alexander Clapp's inquisitorial takedown of the global garbage industry — to any page, and read aloud a line or two chosen at random. Like the sortes Virgilianae of the Romans, it's a kind of divination game — only here, it's all already come true, and the objective is to see how many rounds you can stand before succumbing to the all-pervading horror. From the introduction: 'You are currently living in a world in which the human ability to create garbage' has 'surpassed Earth's ability to generate life.' Describing conditions in a trash village in Ghana: 'Indeed, parts of the Korle Lagoon landscape have been burning longer than many of Agbogbloshie's residents have been alive.' Quoting an Interpol official: 'You have groups getting out of the drug and weapons trade and entering the waste one. The risk is so much lower, the reward so much bigger.' According to Clapp, global trade and global finance — even much of the emerging 'green' economy of the global North — are floating on an awesome sea of castoff dreck. Dispiriting premise notwithstanding, 'Waste Wars' does manage to live up to the adventurous ring of its subtitle; trash's afterlife is wild indeed. Readers follow the author on a whirlwind tour to discover what, exactly, happens to the things we chuck in the bin, haul to the dump or sell to the scrapyard. The answer: nothing good. 'Much of what you have been led to believe was getting 'recycled' over the last generation has never been helping the planet,' Clapp writes; instead, it has simply been shipped to remote corners of the developing world, there to be chemically converted, releasing toxic byproducts, or to languish while slowly poisoning whatever rivers, forests, farms and people happen to be in the way. From Central America to West Africa, Greece to Indonesia, Clapp serves up a stirring picture of the deliberate and surprisingly profitable despoliation of one half of the planet by the other. Some of this is not, in a sense, news. That much of what passes for responsible waste disposal constitutes 'a morality performance,' in Clapp's words, is something of which many of us have been dimly aware, even as we dutifully file our spent water bottles into the proper receptacle. What does come as a revelation is just how much money is to be made off trash, who makes it and the sheer variety of their means. In Kosovo, scrap metal 'is the economy,' Clapp writes, the country cannibalizing its own industrial infrastructure to the tune of $40 million per annum; in China, government proxies pay 'plastic traders to take weeklong tours of Southeast Asian nations to scout out potential warehouses to shred and melt old Western plastic.' Clapp traces the links in an international daisy chain of pliant governments, dubious corporate interests and deluded consumers, all the while keeping in view the very real human stakes: In Turkey, for example, the author meets the family of 30-year-old Oguz Taskin, who burned to death while dismantling an American cruise ship in a gray-market shipyard. Equally astonishing, if no less depressing, is just how long this whole sordid business has been going on, and how long some people have been trying to stop it. In its closing pages, 'Waste Wars' quotes a former Kenyan president: 'We do not want external domination to come in through the back door in the form of 'garbage imperialism.'' That was in 1988; by then, refuse had already begun accumulating en masse, a crisis that eventually led the country to pass sub-Saharan Africa's strongest ban on single-use plastic bags. As an instance of organized, rational resistance to Big Junk, Kenya is not alone, and Clapp documents other noble efforts mounted by local actors the world over. Such attempts, however, face long odds — as they do in Kenya, where the bag ban has been under assault from (of course) plastic manufacturers, who promise enhanced recycling facilities in exchange for the law's repeal. Such is the way of all garbage. Insofar as 'Waste Wars' advances an overall resolution to its eponymous conflict, it is the effective dismantlement of what has been called the 'throwaway society' born of midcentury America, exported abroad as part of a geopolitical strategy, and by now hard-wired into the hearts and minds of billions. Uprooting this ideology seems rather a distant prospect — at least on these shores, where plastic straws, as we have lately been told, are not only functionally superior to their biodegradable counterparts, but must be understood as essential props to patriotism. There are moments, in Clapp's book, of great sweep and humanity, and even a few of surprising levity. But these must be looked for, bobbing forlorn amid the computer parts and zip-lock bags stretching clear to the horizon. His is not a fun game, nor is it meant to be.
The Hindu
28-04-2025
- General
- The Hindu
Waste Wars: How the Global North's Garbage Industry Is Poisoning the Global South
Published : Apr 28, 2025 20:21 IST - 10 MINS READ Alexander Clapp's Waste Wars is an exceptionally frightening and depressing book. Strangely, it is also very inspiring. It inspires in two ways. First, one is awestruck at the journalistic brio and thoroughness Clapp brings to bear on a task he undertook, that of describing the state of garbage in today's world and of telling us how we got here. Second, one is inspired by the tantalising possibilities he points to that should help mankind flip a seemingly hopeless situation of being overwhelmed by waste into one of mastering the problem and finding neat, wholesome and sustainable ways to overcome it. There is a wealth of information that makes condensing this book difficult. But this review will focus on some of the big themes that emerge. This will include broad patterns over time, some geographical and geopolitical considerations and those based on the nature of the waste being produced and disposed. Often these overlap. One clear pattern is that as soon as the pesticide industry emerged and the dangers of its safe disposal were understood, something that Rachael Carson drew the world's attention to, the manufacturers began cleaning up their backyard. Environmental laws were put in place and mechanisms to monitor compliance were set up. But there was a crucial lapse. The laws only applied to the US and later to some other parts of the Global North. For the rest of the world, the Global South, the default assumption was that they would receive all the waste that an ever-burgeoning industrial world generated. Soon USAID began despatching large stockpiles of waste to India, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Haiti. The place did not matter so long as it was far from the US. Also Read | India's environmental pioneers: The forgotten story An industry established itself around waste. It involved collecting the worst pollutants—often the residue of legal chemicals, including old asbestos, cyanide-laced waste, PCBs, hydraulic fluids, and infectious hospital waste—and then exporting them to poor countries. Where possible, it was disguised as international aid. In a short-time this grew into a billion-dollar business. Third world debt and development went hand in hand. A village of waste Right wing governments in Latin America depended on the US for military aid. Waste was then forced on them. Even the Soviet Union, ostensibly against exploitation by capitalism, became an imperial power, exporting waste to Benin, a client state. The oil crisis of 1973 was an inflection point. Many nations became debtor nations, borrowing money to buy oil. They could no longer afford to buy new steel or aluminium and were forced to turn to scrap metal from Europe. This was given to them as foreign aid. In these cases, waste was no longer waste; it was a tool for development. The gaps between the clean North and the dirty South continued to widen. The most dispiriting part of this saga of horrors is the tale of 'waste villages' in East Java. Here a native paper production industry was established decades ago, exploiting the local abundance of bamboo. Once all the bamboo was cut, the compulsions to keep the mills going meant scouring the world for new raw material. The US and Netherlands stepped in, selling their waste paper to Indonesia. Anne Leonard, who alerted the world to planned obsolescence, traced some of this waste from Seattle to Java. The flattened waste paper that reached the mills contained a lot of plastic sheets as well. They could not be returned and so they began to be spread on rice fields in Java. Soon all the paddies disappeared; fields of gray plastic replaced them. The hot tropical sun dried them. The natives soon discovered a use for them, as fuel. The dried plastic was burned, not in the very high temperatures that rendered the toxins in them neutral, but in ordinary kilns and stoves. Worse, they were used as fuel to make tofu and crackers, two items of food the villagers began to sell to other parts of Java. The food was contaminated by the toxins, but nobody cared. The business was so profitable villages began to elect 'trash chiefs' to ensure fair distribution of the fuel among all the families in the village. Klapp describes the state of those villages: the soil is barren, the animals are dead or dying, the water tables are contaminated and the rivers and streams are the most toxic in the world. Waste Wars: Dirty Deals, International Rivalries and the Scandalous Afterlife of Rubbish Alexander Clapp John Murray, London Rs.799 But the citizens of this wasteland are happy. Do you want us to return to rice cultivation? they ask. Not when burning free plastic is the closest to printing one's own money, Clapp observes. Turkey figures often in Clapp's narrative. It lay on the fringe of the fertile crescent, considered the cradle of civilisation and one of the most beautiful places on earth. Until 2018, when the Chinese ban on plastic imports took effect. Looking for other sites to dump rubbish the Global North found parts of Latin America, Africa, India, south east Asia and two places in their own backyard, Greece and Turkey. Turkey's construction boom was helped by cheap imports of US and European scrap steel and aluminium. The metals were recycled and some of it sent back to the US. Why? Because the dirty job of recycling often contaminated scrap was outsourced. Later, the manufacturing of white goods itself was exported so all the pollution took place on foreign lands. Once used, the stuff was shipped back to destinations in the third world. The planning and implementation were perfect, often guided by USAID and the World Bank. Ghana is another horror story. It was at one point the world's largest recipient of electrical and electronic waste. In the capital is a slum, Agbogbloshie, where gangs of young Ghanian boys work on the western world's electrical and electronic detritus. Some burn wires to extract the copper in them; some dissolve them in acid. Others dismantle phones and hard disks for all the minerals that can be harvested from them. Smaller teams of smart boys profit from them without soiling their hands. They scour the phones and hard disks for photographs of pretty white women. They then use them to scam older white men and to appeal for donations. They do not always find victims but when they do life is good for the contributions they elicit are always in Dollars or Euros. Some knowledge of how to use the Internet and English goes a long way. Much cyber crime springs from these African slums. Don't blame the locals, says Clapp. Blame the callousness of the West and their carelessness in handing over unerased laptops and phones that are still in working condition to waste merchants. Across much of the equator gathering, sorting and burning trash has become the default occupation of humanity, not farming. Some development projects in poor nations involve financing provided by rich ones. Roads have been laid in Somalia that lead nowhere. The tarmac was laid to hide the toxic material buried under the roads. The idea of Trumpism There is a pristine lake in remote Central America that was filled with extremely toxic liquid. This is the closest one can get to the perfect crime, Clapp notes. The surroundings are ruined for many years to come. The US would install and uninstall governments in the 'banana republics' based solely on the willingness of the rulers to accept garbage. Waste ash, falsely labelled fertilizer, generated in Philadelphia once travelled in a thrice renamed ship, across three oceans, five continents with three stopped at ports in 20 countries before dumping the whole load in Haiti, its original destination. The delay was to ensure the installation of a pliable set of officials there. Kosovo, one of the youngest nations in the world has an economy almost entirely dependent on waste recycling, done mostly by poor Roma people, descendants of migrants from India. No less than 60,000 tons of steel from the 9/11 attacks on New York, were used for construction in India. They were exported from the US because they were contaminated and Indian laws did not stop the deal. Five tiny nations, all tax havens, (Liberia, Malta, Panama, Marshall Islands and the Bahamas) own the bulk of the 1,20,000 bulk cargo carriers, oil tankers and container ships that ply the seas of the world. The ship breaking industry, marked by lax laws and little enforcement, is both dangerous and profitable and is concentrated in places from Turkey to Chittagong. Alang, in India. in one of the biggest and dirtiest ship breaking yards in the world. The US, the world's largest generator of hazardous materials, has not yet signed the Basel Convention, the rules of which forbid illegal exports of dangerous material. So, all the fine words in declarations and speeches are just rhetoric. The truth about waste was out there. Clapp has gone around the globe, observed and described it. He should be applauded and thanked for a unique job well done. Clapp's talent for the cutting phrase, the arresting analogy, and the eye-catching description leads to multiple descriptions of the same or similar phenomena but is rewarding since it means fine prose throughout the book. He does sound breathless at times: He has been breathing so much foul air. One thing the book teaches us is that Trumpism is much older than Trump. Trumpism is the idea that white Westerners are exceptional and that nothing should be allowed to prevent them from having their way. So, an Ayn Rand like selfishness guides the actions of the rich nations. The poor and the weak have no rights or claims; they can be and are treated like vermin. An extreme callousness propels the privileged and the wretched of the earth have to accept this situation as normal and given. Also Read | Linnaeus' taxonomy and the roots of scientific bias Clapp's book should be treated as a belated wake up call. If we brush these issues under the carpet the twin monsters of climate change and mass extinction of species will, in due course, swallow us. It is not that all production of pesticides or chemicals is bad or that recycling is not an option. It is that rather than invest in the procedures and processes that would neutralise the damage waste does, preferably close to the places that produce them, the cheaper option of transporting waste to the most powerless and miserable parts of the world is what is almost always done. This troubles Clapp and he wants the situation remedied. We should awaken the better angels of our nature and subdue the political and business interests that ensure the perpetuation of a greed-and-profit-motive led world. Then a set of decent, clean, practical and fair solutions should be put in place. Kerala, which is making progress towards setting up workable, decentralised and community driven systems aimed at achieving zero waste, and the rest of India, can take this as a warning and an encouragement. Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey told us this story in 2018, from an India-centric point, when they collaborated to produce Waste of a Nation: Growth and Garbage in India. Clapp updates us with a far more frightening picture with the focus on the Global South. He offers us some cheer with tantalising glimpses of how this situation can be flipped. The knowhow and the money are available. What is missing are governments pushing the right policies and technologies and civic minded citizens rooting for change. If you were not a post-colonialist, this book will turn you into one. P. Vijaya Kumar, a retired college teacher of English, is based in Thiruvananthapuram.
