A Review of Noxious New York by Julie Sze, MIT Press, 2007

On March 22, 1987, a barge called the Mobro 4000 departed from New York with 3,168 tons of trash on board. It journeyed the entire length of the eastern coast of the United States and continued as far south as Belize in search of a dumping destination. Four months later the ship returned to New York with its load still intact, having been rejected by authorities at every stop.

While the journey of the “Gar-barge,” as it was called at the time, may have been a unique incident that embarrassed New York, it also highlights a period of time when garbage began to take on complex cultural, political and economic contexts. In the 1980s, New York and much of the rest of the country were faced with the question of what to do with an ever-increasing amount of waste. The creation of large-scale municipal waste management sites was a solution, but only for some. Indeed, the presence of new industrial facilities in certain neighborhoods helped spark environmental justice activism in New York. Continue reading Environmental Justice Roots Run Deep →