Mr. Clapp is a journalist and the author of “Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash,” from which this essay is adapted. In the closing years of the Cold War, something strange started to happen.

As the anniversary of the Birmingham bin strike looms, residents' recycling is still yet to be collected, with mountains of rubbish sitting on pavements and street corners, leaving some locals ...

Mars bar wrappers, McDonald's packaging, face masks and much more plastic waste is being reused by some water-dwelling birds to nest in the middle of big cities, researchers have found. Some of these ...

Federal minister for the environment Greg Hunt faces two big threats to waste reduction in Australia, but appears not to be aware of the problems. Hunt boasted on March 6 about the effectiveness of ...