Where does your recycling go? In most places in the U.S., you throw it in a bin, and then it gets carted off to be sorted and cleaned at a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF). From there, much of it is shipped off to mills, where bales of paper, glass, aluminum, and plastic are pulped or melted into raw materials. Some of these mills are here in the U.S. And once upon a time, many of them were in China. Since 2001, China was one of the biggest buyers of American recycling. That is, until last year, when China pulled a move that no one saw coming: they stopped buying. National Sword Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

Here at 99% Invisible, we think about color a lot, so it was really exciting when we came across a beautiful book called The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair It’s this amazing collection of stories about different colors, the way they’ve been made through history, and the lengths to which people will go to get the brightest splash of color. The Secret Lives of Color Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

In May of 1990, law enforcement raided a warehouse in Douglas, AZ and a private home across the border in Agua Prieta, Mexico. Connecting the two buildings, they found a tunnel, more sophisticated than anything anyone had seen before. The tunnel in Douglas became a kind of prototype for many tunnels afterwards and a hallmark of the Sinaloa Cartel. The Tunnel Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

Santa Barbara, California, is a famously beautiful place, but if you look offshore from one of the city's many beaches, you'll see a series of artificial structures that stand out against the natural blue horizon. These oil platforms are at the center of a complicated debate going on right now within the environmental community about the relationship between nature and human infrastructure. Crude Habitat 99% Invisible’s Impact Design coverage is supported by Autodesk. The Autodesk Foundation supports the design and creation of innovative solutions to the world's most pressing social and environmental challenges. Learn more about these efforts on Autodesk's RedShift. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

In the early 1950s, teenage students in Lake County, Indiana, got up from their desks, marched down the halls and lined up at stations. There, fingers were pricked, blood was tested and the teenagers were sent on to the library, where they waited to get a specialized tattoo. Each one was in the same place on the torso, just under the left arm, and spelled out the blood type of the student. This experimental program was called Operation Tat-Type. It was administered by the county and the idea was simple: to make it easier to transfuse blood after an atomic bomb. At the age of 16, producer Liza Yeager's grandmother, who went to school in Lake County, was permanently marked in anticipation of a nuclear catastrophe. Atomic Tattoos Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

99% Invisible is starting the year off with the sixth installment of our staff mini-stories. Kicking off 2019 are a set of tales about a perpetual lie about New York City, karaoke, a 50-foot-tall burning puppet, the result of a Canada-U.S. border dispute, and time thieves. Mini-Stories: Volume 6 Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

Magic: The Gathering is a card game and your goal is to knock your opponent down to zero points. But Magic: The Gathering also has a deep mythology about an infinite number of parallel worlds. Eric Molinsky of Imaginary Worlds looks at why this handheld card game has survived the onslaught of competition from digital games, and how the designers at Wizards of the Coast create a sense of story and world-building within a non-sequential card game. Subscribe to Imaginary Worlds on Apple Podcasts and RadioPublic Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

For the holidays this year, we're presenting a two-part Radiotopia feature with friend of the show (and host of The Allusionist podcast) Helen Zaltzman, each tackling a different aspect of this festive season. Subscribe to The Allusionist on Apple Podcasts and RadioPublic Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

It’s the end of 2018 and time for our annual Mini-stories episodes. These are my favorite episodes of the year to make. Mini-stories are fun, quick hit stories that don’t quite warrant a full episode and two months of hard reporting, but they’re great 99pi stories nonetheless. This week we have stories of 60s cult TV shows, semi-useless gadgets, woo woo miracles cures, and a modern Christmas tradition. Mini-Stories: Volume 5 Support Radiotopia today! Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

Roman talks with Avery about the lessons learned from making Articles of Interest Don’t buy that new piece of clothing and use a bit of that money to support Radiotopia Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

A group of artists find a secret room in a massive shopping center in Providence, RI and discover a new way to experience the mall. Plus, we look at the origin of the very first mall and the fascinating man who designed it, Victor Gruen. The Accidental Room Subscribe to Vanessa Lowe’s Nocturne DONATE NOW to Radiotopia! Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

Juan de Oñate is one of the world’s lesser-known conquistadors, but his name can be found all over New Mexico. There are Oñate streets, Oñate schools, and, of course, Oñate statues. When an activist group removed one foot off an Oñate statue in 1998, they said it was a symbolic act meant to highlight the atrocities Oñate committed against the indigenous population. Just as people in New Mexico were learning more of this history, the city of Albuquerque was considering building yet another statue of him. This resulted in a years long conflict about how New Mexico should commemorate a “founding father” who committed such cruel acts. Oñate’s Foot This was a collaboration with Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX Please support the 2018 Radiotopia fund drive! Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.