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Recent studies have explored the history of consumerism in communist Eastern Europe, suggesting that socialist consumption followed its own rhythm and logic. However, when it comes to waste-making and recycling existing literature focuses on post-industrial waste practices of the Soviet bloc, paying little attention to post-consumer waste. However, socialist societies did not follow the West's example and refrained from introducing single-use materials, such as disposable beverage containers. Could this also mean that socialists did a better job to deal with their own post-consumer waste than the West? The current scientific knowledge does not answer that question. To cover that gap in the research, this article situates socialist beverage containers and especially recyclable soft drink bottles made of glass in a wider discourse about the meaning of waste, discards, recycling, and material culture in socialism, particularly in Hungary. It suggests that the socialist waste dilemma was unique to Eastern European economies because of its social, ideological, and cultural layers, of which the scientific community has limited understanding. It proposes that despite different ideological foundations, the socialists battled with similar waste problems than in the West, however systematic differences were large enough to produce less post-consumer waste and recycle that waste more efficiently compared to the West.

Artikkeli käsittelee autoritaaristen hallitusten ympäristösuhteita. Artikkelin tapaustutkimus käsittelee Unkarin kommunistisen hallituksen reagointia kasvaviin ympäristöongelmiin 1960-luvulla. Artikkelin tarkoituksena on selittää ympäristökriisin tärkeimpiä kansallisia tekijöitä erityisesti Borsodin teollisuusalueeseen liittyen. Ko. alueella luonnonvarojen käyttö aiheutti monimuotoisen ympäristökriisin, minkä ratkaisu vaati valtiotoimijoilta useita eri toimia. Artikkelissa Unkarin tapaus asetetaan laajempaan kontekstiin: miten ja miksi autoritaariset hallitukset kuten Guatemalan ja Chilen juntat tai demokratiat kuten Länsi-Saksa käyttivät erilaisia teknologioita ja propagandaa luonnonvarojen säilyttämisen edistämiseksi. Artikkelin tarkoituksena on vastata siihen, kuinka ja miksi erilaiset lähestymistavat ympäristönsuojeluun epäonnistuivat erilaisissa poliittisissa järjestelmissä. Artikkeli pyrkii myös selittämään ihmisten ja luonnollisen ympäristön ristiriitaisia suhteita autoritaarisissa hallintojärjestelmissä.

Environmental protection in authoritarian systems
This article discusses the complex relationships between the natural environment and authoritarian governments via the study's main case: the growing environmental problems of Cold War Hungary and the reaction to those issues by the country's government. This study aims to shed light on some of the most important factors of the environmental challenges faced in one of the largest industrial areas of that country, the Borsod Basin. Here, the extraction of natural resources caused a complex environmental crisis that required substantial efforts from various state agencies. This article presents the Hungarian case in a broader context to study how and why authoritarian and democratic governments such as the Guatemalan and Chilean juntas and West Germany have used technology and propaganda to promote the conservation of natural resources. In conclusion, this article aims to explain how and why various approaches under various political and economic circumstances to mend the environment eventually failed.

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- List of Contributors -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Introduction: Contemporary Cultural Perspectives on Discards in the Asia-Pacific Region -- 2 Caste, Hierarchy and Cultural Construction of Food (waste?) -- 3 Environment By, with, and for the Citizens: Collective Identity Shaping the Community-Driven Solid Waste Management in Kerala, India -- 4 Polluted Histories, Clean Futures? Differing Scenarios for an Electronic Waste Circular Economy in China -- 5 What Type of Trash are You? Steering "Green" Citizenship and Self-Responsibility in Urban China -- 6 Becoming Visible: An Examination of Chen Qiulin's Farewell Poem (2002) and Jia Zhangke's Still Life (2006) -- 7 Individually and Collectively Grieving the Fukushima Dead at a Waste-Mountain: A Reading of Post-3/11 Novel "Hikari No Yama [Mountain of Light]" By Japanese Monk-Writer Genyu Sokyu -- 8 Defining Food (and its waste) -- 9 Waste Through Different Eyes: Multi-Sited Photovoice Explorations -- 10 Afterword: Planetary Potlatch: Scrutinizing the Moral Economy of Recycling -- Index.

Finland has often been labelled a 'green superpower', lauded as one of the world's cleanest and greenest countries. Nordic countries in general have tended to be idealised as 'pristine and green', in contrast to the rest of the rapidly contaminating world where the race for markets and profits has enormously accelerated consumption, imposing on the environment an alarming level of extraction and commerce, and a wide array of new and old forms of pollution. Environmental historians, however, can perceive that the reputed 'greenness' of the Nordic countries is partly an illusion. Authors in this volume argue that Finland, similarly to Denmark, Norway and Sweden, has evolved into a green superpower at the cost of considerable environmental problems. Ironically, Finland's current leading position in sustainable development has been built on the heavy use of natural resources and by sacrificing ecosystem health. This volume thus seeks to acquaint the reader with many stories of long-lasting negative environmental impacts in and around Finland: old-growth forests have been replaced by intensive forest farming for lumber and pulp industries; most wetlands have been drained for agriculture, forest cultivation and peat extraction; wild animal populations have been decimated; and Finland today is confined to the south and west by arguably the most polluted sea in the world.There are lessons for the future to be learnt from Finland's tendency to rest on the laurels of a positive environmental reputation built at least in part on myth. In the twenty-first century, the world badly needs less greenwashing and a truer commitment to green-ness.

Reforestation of waste lands and "environmental statehood" in nineteenth century Prussia / Jawad Daheur -- Red and green all over: counterinsurgency and conservation in the jungles of Cold War Guatemala / Tony Andersson -- Hydroelectric dams and the rise of environmentalism under dictatorship in Brazil and Paraguay (1950-1990): the case of Itaipu / Nathalia Capellini Carvalho de Oliveira and Carlos Gomez Florentin -- Crafting authoritarian atmospheres under Pinochet's dictatorship / Leonardo Valenzuela Pérez -- Bark beetles and ultra-right nationalist outbreaks: Bialowieza, Poland / Eunice Blavascunas and Agata Agnieszka Konczal -- Planned environment in a socialist dictatorship: complex water management and soil improvement in Moravia / Jirí Janác -- Slovakiaś economic and political development in the communist regime of the post 1948 Czechoslovakia and its environmental context / Ludovít Hallon and Miroslav Sabol -- Retention of sulfur dioxide emission in the GDR: between technology, economics, diplomacy and public opinion / Michel Dupuy -- Sino-silviculture: state-sponsored green forestry initiatives in Mao's China / Christopher Ree -- Zimbabwe's drift toward authoritarianism and its environmental consequences, 2000-2017 / Mucha Musemwa -- Conclusions and perspectives / Richard Tucker.

The migration of health workers is a global phenomenon with considerable impact on health care systems, which issue became a policy concern in Hungary after the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union in 2000s and early 2010s. The main aim of this paper is to reveal the migration intentions and motives of Hungarian medical students and health professionals.