Assignment: Plastic recycling’s dirty secrets

Matthew Sweet reports from an exhibition in Sweden about American conscripts who sought refuge there during the war in Vietnam. He hears from sound artist Nhung Nguyen and film-maker Esther Johnson about their work on archival documents and extracts from the station known as Libe ...  Show more

Can diplomacy alone end the war in Ukraine in the absence of a compromise? After nearly four years of fighting and countless deaths, top diplomats from Russia, Ukraine, the US and Europe have been hard at work trying to hammer out a peace deal. Indeed, this work has produced seve ...  Show more

When China stopped receiving the world’s waste, Turkey became Europe’s recycling hotspot. The problem is, most plastics can’t be recycled. And what remains are toxic heaps of trash By Alexander Clapp. Read by Philip Arditti. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian. ...  Show more

Just ahead of Zero Waste Day, this episode of The Weekly Tradecast talks trash with UNCTAD economist Henrique Silva Pacini Costa. From plastic packaging to fast fashion to car batteries, we have been creating mountains of waste for decades. It’s everywhere – in landfills, in the ...  Show more

Datshiane Navanayagam talks to women from Nigeria and the UK who are trying to ensure what we throw away doesn’t go to waste.Esther Fagbo is a partner at Wecyclers in Nigeria – a for-profit social enterprise that pays waste pickers and households for their recyclable rubbish in d ...  Show more

We are turning our beautiful Ocean into a plastic soup. About 8 million tons of plastic enter the sea every year, and if we do not change, we face a future with more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050. Our plastic addiction and waste mismanagement are condemning countless mar ...  Show more