In the 1980s, Philadelphia was in the midst of a trash crisis. A sanitation workers’ strike had left the city with an immense backlog of garbage. The solution: Ship it overseas, on a rusting cargo vessel called the Khian Sea. But when one country after another refused to take Philly’s waste, it turned the Khian Sea’s trash voyage into a trash odyssey, and shed light on a growing problem that critics came to call “garbage imperialism.”

Featured in this episode:

Kenny Bruno

Sources:

Simone M. Müller’s book The Toxic Ship

Alexander Clapp’s book Waste Wars

Planet Money’s reporting on the Mobro 4000: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/739893511

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