Latest news with #Clapp
Scientific American
31-07-2025
- Science
- Scientific American
What Books Scientific American Read in July
Billions of dollars are spent every year moving countless tons of trash all around the world in a waste black market—and no one knows exactly where it all goes or who is making a profit. Science journalist Alexander Clapp spent two years living out of a backpack in search of toxic dump sites hidden deep in unmapped jungles and traversing mountains of trash visible from space for his new book Waste Wars. 'A lot of global trash over the last 30 to 40 years has been going to poor countries under the guise that it's being recycled,' Clapp told Scientific American in a recent interview. But humans break down that waste in a lethal and dangerous process that releases toxic chemicals into the air and water, he said, and those chemicals disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations. 'If you're sending waste to another country, you're not calling it trash on any export document—you're calling it recyclable material,' Clapp added. 'One thing that I hope my book encourages or leads people to question is how much of our waste is actually moving around the world.' —
Scientific American
11-07-2025
- General
- Scientific American
Your Garbage Has a 'Wild Afterlife' on the International Black Market
Sorting your trash and recycling is common practice: break down the cardboard boxes, separate the compostable material and plastics and put them into the correct containers, put the trash on the curb, and you're done. But what happens next is where the story gets interesting. A billion-dollar industry exists around moving countless tons of waste from wealthy countries to poorer ones. For two years journalist Alexander Clapp lived out of a backpack and visited the smelliest parts of the most beautiful places on Earth—looking for hidden dump sites in the Venezuelan jungle and scaling mountains of trash in Ghana—for his new book Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash. He tracks the massive scope of waste management, from top-level international relations to underground whisper networks, and reveals the dirty underbelly of what happens to our trash. Scientific American spoke with Clapp about the people who break apart and sort our trash all over the world, the growth of the global waste economy and the future of waste management. [ An edited transcript of the interview follows.] On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. Can you tell me where our exported garbage and not-quite-recyclable goods end up? It would depend what type of trash we're talking about, when we're talking about it or from which country it's being discarded. But a lot of global trash over the last 30 to 40 years has been going to poor countries under the guise that it's being recycled. That trash will get broken down, or someone will attempt to make some use out of it—to extract some profit from it—and that's an extremely dangerous and often lethal process where all sorts of contaminants and forever chemicals enter local ecosystems. They go into the air, they go into the water, and they do huge amounts of damage—damage to, disproportionately, the most vulnerable populations in the world. Why would one country ever, under any circumstances, buy the garbage from another country? Is someone getting scammed, or is there a legitimate reason to buy boatloads of biological, technological or toxic waste? That is one of the reasons why I got interested in this topic. We send our waste to the very countries that cannot handle their own domestic waste outputs. I think the dichotomy that's worth keeping in mind with the waste trade is that it's not necessarily rich countries versus poor countries; within poor countries, you have importers who are actually buying the waste for pennies, and they are very much part of the problem. The most important thing to understand about the waste trade is that in the 1980s many poor countries felt that they had no option other than to import waste from the so-called global north. They were heavily indebted; they were desperate for factories, ports, industry of any kind. And so I think there's a really insipid, disturbing history of how and why the waste trade began. Which leads to the question—how much money is actually involved in this global waste economy? Let's say it costs $140 to put a ton of old plastic in a landfill. A waste broker would actually have to pay the landfill in order to bury that plastic. But what if instead you could sell that plastic to an importer in Malaysia for a few dollars? Then you're not paying $140; you're actually making $2 or $3. That said, a lot of the waste trade, by nature, is operating underground. If you're sending waste to another country, you're not calling it trash on any export document—you're calling it recyclable material. One thing that I hope my book encourages or leads people to question is how much of our waste is actually moving around the world. What are you most interested in regarding the future of this waste economy and of waste management on a global scale? I think what's really interesting about the global waste trade is that in many ways it's like the global drug trade. You see organized crime groups that are getting more and more involved in the waste trade because, frankly, the supply of this stuff is endless. The punishment if you get caught moving waste is negligible. I think the future of waste export and waste movement is organized crime. I think they're going to see this as a monumentally lucrative opportunity. What was the most shocking story you uncovered while researching for this book? The most shocking story probably was with the cruise ship-dismantling industry in Türkiye. On the Aegean coast of Türkiye, there's a [town] called Aliağa where American cruise ship companies disproportionately send a lot of their ships to be dismantled. And you would think that the process of deconstructing a cruise ship would be mechanically refined, but it's actually kind of this maniacal process done almost entirely by hand where you have armies of helmeted men filing into these cruise ships and breaking this stuff up. One thing that I found was that most of the men who get recruited into doing this work have little idea of what they're doing. They've never seen the ocean before. They were recruited from the middle of Türkiye and given a week's worth of training. It's absolutely excruciating. What was the most surprisingly common occurrence across all of your research? In terms of the most common story that I would hear, it's the extent to which in poor countries trash, and especially plastic, is just regarded as another commodity. Generally [the people I encountered didn't] think about this stuff as a potentially toxic substance. That was shocking to me. In places such as Java and [other parts of] Indonesia, hundreds of tons of Western plastic are imported every week and used as fuel in tofu factories, and then that tofu gets exported around the world's most populous island [Java]. I was just struck by how kind of pedestrian it seems to just burn plastic in places to get rid of it or to find some use for it.
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- 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
