What motivates an activist to exaggerate and even lie about the conditions in which Chinese laborers live and work? Like many, I first pondered this question after hearing Mike Daisey’s infamous This American Life episode. And, like many, I never thought that others would dare follow in his dishonest footsteps. Then I came across China Labor Watch (or…
All posts in Junkyard Planet
Coming Soon: Scenes from a Junkyard Planet
For the last couple of years, China has been the world’s largest automobile market, supplanting the United States. So, for the last month or so, I’ve spent some time trying to figure out what on earth China plans to do with all of those cars once they’re no longer road-worthy. More on my conclusions, soon.…
Junkyard Planet
This just in: I’ve turned in the manuscript to my first book, Junkyard Planet, to Bloomsbury Press. It’s a first-person account of the globalizing waste and recycling industry, from the wilds of Fort Wayne, Indiana, to the grimy scrap boomtowns of south China. We’ll laugh, we’ll cry, we’ll visit the machine that recovers most of…