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Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash
An investigation into America's relationship with trash takes readers on four separate tours in which the author analyzes her household trash, compostable matter, recyclables, and sewage, in an account that reveals what happens to garbage and the relevance of waste products and their disposal practices. By the author of The Tapir's Morning Bath.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
109 people are currently reading
3125 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Royte
11 books27 followersElizabeth Royte is an American science/nature writer. She is best known for her books Garbage Land (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year 2005), The Tapir's Morning Bath: Solving the Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, 2001), and Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It (a "Best of" or "Top 10" book of 2008 in Entertainment Weekly, Seed and Plenty magazines).
Royte's articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, National Geographic, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, The Nation, Outside, Smithsonian, and other magazines. Her work has been featured in the Best American Science Writing 2004 and the Best American Science Writing 2009M. Royte is a former Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow and a recipient of Bard College's John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service.
Royte's articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, National Geographic, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, The Nation, Outside, Smithsonian, and other magazines. Her work has been featured in the Best American Science Writing 2004 and the Best American Science Writing 2009M. Royte is a former Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow and a recipient of Bard College's John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 325 reviews
July 7, 2016
This is a very dense book that appears to cover every possible aspect of garbage disposal and recycling in New York in particular and California and other states in general. Its quite interesting and very worthy and ... ultimately meaningless as a statistic towards the end reveals that only 2% of all garbage is household waste. The rest of it is industrial, primarily manufacturing and commercial, mostly restaurants and fast food outlets. One of the quite shocking (if you imagine this planet weighed down with detritus) figures is that for every 100 pounds of manufactured goods, 3,200 pounds of waste are generated.
Elizabeth Royte quotes from a paper by Samantha McBride of NYU's Dept. of Sociology on consumer recycing. 'Such programs', she wrote, redirect 'the focus of environmental concern away from the material unsustainability of the current economic system, instead turning it inward on the self'.
As long as we insist on living in an economy that revolves around forever researching, developing, manufacturing, selling, purchasing, using and discarding goods in favour of the Next New Thing, the focus on trash will be how to deal with it. We really should be concentrating on how not to make so much of it in the first place. But we won't, we're too addicted to 'new'. The thought of an economy that does not depend on consumerism would be considered anti-patriotic by Americans and, in any case, be unworkable in any present Western society.
So what to do? Buy a bag that says Green on it, divide up the garbage and feel satisfied that you are doing your bit for the planet and forget the other 98% that nullifies your efforts. Blinkers.
Elizabeth Royte quotes from a paper by Samantha McBride of NYU's Dept. of Sociology on consumer recycing. 'Such programs', she wrote, redirect 'the focus of environmental concern away from the material unsustainability of the current economic system, instead turning it inward on the self'.
As long as we insist on living in an economy that revolves around forever researching, developing, manufacturing, selling, purchasing, using and discarding goods in favour of the Next New Thing, the focus on trash will be how to deal with it. We really should be concentrating on how not to make so much of it in the first place. But we won't, we're too addicted to 'new'. The thought of an economy that does not depend on consumerism would be considered anti-patriotic by Americans and, in any case, be unworkable in any present Western society.
So what to do? Buy a bag that says Green on it, divide up the garbage and feel satisfied that you are doing your bit for the planet and forget the other 98% that nullifies your efforts. Blinkers.
August 22, 2018
Where does all our garbage go? Once we have it exit our homes, it’s pretty much out of sight, out of mind. This book takes us into the author/reporter’s home with a peek into her family’s trash and waste habits, touring the streets of New York City on trash day with the “San men” in a garbage truck, visiting the different paper, plastic, metal processing plants, sewage/wastewater treatment plants, landfills - the management (or mismanagement of them). This book is an eye opener on the excessive waste products of our nation and the disposal of them.
Why I wanted to read this book:
I became more aware of all the plastics in use in my household and especially when packing for a recent Minnesota fishing trip.
Plastic freezer bags for our fish, water and juice containers, shampoo and bath gel, hairspray and deodorant products, plastic toothbrush and shaver, medication bottles, plastic window fan, plastic fish and bait containers, plastic coolers, dispo contact lens, dog food and treats in plastic pouches, human snack packs, plastic food containers (salad dressing, ketchup, bbq sauce...)
HOLY SMOKES!! How did this happen?????
I vowed my husband and I were going to make some changes once we got home and relook at some things we buy and use.
We already are pretty efficient with our garbage and recycling and have an active composting bin which is great for my garden.
The earth is already quite sickened with pollution and in trouble and the recent regurgitation of plastics on beaches and the swirling vortex of plastics in the Pacific, the destructive red tide in Florida, to name but a few, caused me to go on a mission to become more aware, more proactive in my efforts, and possibly help others become more aware and thoughtful with their garbage and future product purchases.
Facts at the time of this book’s publication:
* America throws out an average of 4.65 lbs of trash per week (based on 2 adults and 1 child in 10 months).
* Pennsylvania has 51 landfills and they import ten million tons of waste per year from neighboring states. States that take other states’ waste receive financial payment, which in turn, generates jobs, jumpstarts their economy and community and provides services in these once depressed counties that were lacking before.
* The worst garbage time periods per the “San man” (sanitation man) is after a party (lots of food waste), and between Memorial Day and July 4 (lots of bbq garbage and food waste) and after Christmas.
* The garbage dumps of the Roman Empire are still leaching waste residue; more than two thousand years later!
* In death, being cremated causes air pollutants and funeral embalming pollutes our sewers and contaminates the land where we bury our loved ones.
* China has taken a lot of the waste off our hands in the past. (As of early 2018, China is now banning/rejecting our waste, causing a backlog at the source. So if we can’t find anyone else to take it, it goes into a US landfill...so much for our recycling efforts).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
There are a lot of facts, figures and information in this book and it is well done with some humor thrown in. Don’t worry the figures are NOT overwhelming at all and will not put you to sleep like an Excel spreadsheet presentation, but instead will astound you when the author talks about millions of tons of waste or sewage or products or gas. There are some yuck sewage parts 💩but it is all real and fact based.
Recommendations:
1) This would be a good book for a book club discussion.
2) Check out “The Violent Afterlife of a Recycled Plastic Bottle...What Happens After You Toss It Into the Bin” at
theatlantic.com by Debra Winter, The Atlantic Monthly magazine, Dec 4, 2015
Why I wanted to read this book:
I became more aware of all the plastics in use in my household and especially when packing for a recent Minnesota fishing trip.
Plastic freezer bags for our fish, water and juice containers, shampoo and bath gel, hairspray and deodorant products, plastic toothbrush and shaver, medication bottles, plastic window fan, plastic fish and bait containers, plastic coolers, dispo contact lens, dog food and treats in plastic pouches, human snack packs, plastic food containers (salad dressing, ketchup, bbq sauce...)
HOLY SMOKES!! How did this happen?????
I vowed my husband and I were going to make some changes once we got home and relook at some things we buy and use.
We already are pretty efficient with our garbage and recycling and have an active composting bin which is great for my garden.
The earth is already quite sickened with pollution and in trouble and the recent regurgitation of plastics on beaches and the swirling vortex of plastics in the Pacific, the destructive red tide in Florida, to name but a few, caused me to go on a mission to become more aware, more proactive in my efforts, and possibly help others become more aware and thoughtful with their garbage and future product purchases.
Facts at the time of this book’s publication:
* America throws out an average of 4.65 lbs of trash per week (based on 2 adults and 1 child in 10 months).
* Pennsylvania has 51 landfills and they import ten million tons of waste per year from neighboring states. States that take other states’ waste receive financial payment, which in turn, generates jobs, jumpstarts their economy and community and provides services in these once depressed counties that were lacking before.
* The worst garbage time periods per the “San man” (sanitation man) is after a party (lots of food waste), and between Memorial Day and July 4 (lots of bbq garbage and food waste) and after Christmas.
* The garbage dumps of the Roman Empire are still leaching waste residue; more than two thousand years later!
* In death, being cremated causes air pollutants and funeral embalming pollutes our sewers and contaminates the land where we bury our loved ones.
* China has taken a lot of the waste off our hands in the past. (As of early 2018, China is now banning/rejecting our waste, causing a backlog at the source. So if we can’t find anyone else to take it, it goes into a US landfill...so much for our recycling efforts).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
There are a lot of facts, figures and information in this book and it is well done with some humor thrown in. Don’t worry the figures are NOT overwhelming at all and will not put you to sleep like an Excel spreadsheet presentation, but instead will astound you when the author talks about millions of tons of waste or sewage or products or gas. There are some yuck sewage parts 💩but it is all real and fact based.
Recommendations:
1) This would be a good book for a book club discussion.
2) Check out “The Violent Afterlife of a Recycled Plastic Bottle...What Happens After You Toss It Into the Bin” at
theatlantic.com by Debra Winter, The Atlantic Monthly magazine, Dec 4, 2015
July 16, 2017
I have been told to read this book for months and months. Finally got around to it, and I am so glad I did. Garbage Land is a completely accessible, extremely well written contemporary history of the garbage industry, with chapters on landfills, composting, glass recycling, plastics (referred to as "the devil's resin"), etc. I learned so much from reading this book. It includes great ideas for future sustainability, like making manufacturers responsible for disposing of the materials their goods come in (like plastic bottles or toxic computer parts), and building gardens on the roofs of city apartment buildings to cool the buildings and provide a home for "putrescibles," i.e. compost. Who knew garbage could be so enthralling?
Here is a great sum-up quote from this book:
Here is a great sum-up quote from this book:
Our trash cans, I believe, ought to make us think: not about holes in the ground and barrels of oil saved by recycling, but about the enormous amount of material and energy that goes into the stuff we use for an instant and then discard. Garbage should worry us. It should prod us. We don't need better ways to get rid of things. We need to not get rid of things, either by keeping them cycling through the system or not designing and desiring them in the first place.
May 21, 2008
The set-up is straightforward. Royte follows her trash wherever it leads her: to the sanitation truck, to the waste transfer station in Bayridge, to private landfills in Bethlehem, PA, to waste-to-energy facilities in Newark, NJ, to paper/metal/plastic recycling facilities in Staten Island, Jersey City, and Long Island respectively, to her neighbor's composting bin, to the water treatment plants in Owls Head, and yes, she even follows the trail of her poo to Hunts Point in the Bronx. (That is dedication, people.) In sum, her work is an effort to be fully accountable for the waste she produces and the waste that she tries to divert. It's pretty outstanding in concept and in practice.
Some of what she reveals during her journey I expected, but was still saddened/angered by, e.g., that 2/3 of New York's residential and commercial waste flows through the city’s poorest communities—Hunts Point, which sustains up to 20,000 diesel truck trips per week, and Greenpoint, which has the highest concentration of airborne lead and the second-highest rate of asthma in the city. Waste companies across the country, much like the railroad and coal industries decades before them, gladly pay "host fees" to cash-starved rural towns and counties who rely almost exclusively on these funds to meet important public initiatives and also almost exclusively bear the brunt of illness and disease that result from the attendant air, water, and land contamination. Pennsylvania alone has 51 landfills of trash, mainly from NY/NJ, and made $40 million in 2002 from out-of-state dumping. That trash is big business is disheartening from virtually every perspective.
A few elements of her various trails were new to me, e.g., international impact of our domestic efforts to be green. For example, some of New York’s e-waste—old computer monitors and other electronic products gathered in feel-good citywide recycling events—is sent from Manhattan to Guiyu, China where men, women, and children wearing no protective gear mix nitric acid in open vats to extract gold components from these items. Developing nations absorb much of the scrap iron, paper, and plastic that we recycle, but have little by way of worker rights. Add to this that many of the least pleasant jobs in the U.S. necessary for successful reuse efforts often involve a similarly invisible and neglected workforce of Black, Latino, and increasingly elderly populations. The intentional non-mention of this reality, which Royte calls “the dark underside of the green revolution,” is disingenuous and justifies lingering class resentment/suspicion of environmental awareness efforts.
The numbers and information she dropped on the industry-based political analysis were humbling. Virgin papermaking is destructive beyond the harm done to trees, as it is the third largest source of greenhouse gases and requires the dumping of billions of contaminated water. The government provides this industry with $2.6 billion of tax subsidies; recycling and reuse industries get nothing. Royte saved her biggest statistical reveal for the last chapter though: of all the waste generated in the U.S., municipal solid waste (what they pick up from the curb) accounts for only 2% of the total. The other 98% comes from mining and agricultural waste, oil and gas waste, construction and demolition waste, incinerator ash, hazardous waste, etc. This ratio is straight crazy and begs the question of whether we should do anything at all as individuals.
It is clear that large-scale changes in corporate behavior will come only with legislation. Royte repeatedly noted that the European Union is way ahead of the U.S., e.g., building the cost of recycling into the prices of various goods, in virtually every area, but I wanted more from her on the reasons for this. Are the markets there stronger for recycled goods? Does the proximity of EU member-states to each other create an atmosphere for more collective discussion of environmental issues? Are they just superior beings?
Corny as it sounds, I am motivated to make small and large changes in my behavior after reading this, even knowing of the minimal impact. I have no excuse for not recycling pretty much every scrap of paper; I can make buying recycled goods and earth-friendly household products a habit. I can buy and drive less.
At the end, Royte says that one of the most important things she learned in her research was the names of her local sanitation workers. I groaned out loud, but I get her point. Waste everywhere affects someone somewhere and usually in very harmful ways and her connection to her san men makes her mindful of the human impact of her choices. I'm for that.
Some of what she reveals during her journey I expected, but was still saddened/angered by, e.g., that 2/3 of New York's residential and commercial waste flows through the city’s poorest communities—Hunts Point, which sustains up to 20,000 diesel truck trips per week, and Greenpoint, which has the highest concentration of airborne lead and the second-highest rate of asthma in the city. Waste companies across the country, much like the railroad and coal industries decades before them, gladly pay "host fees" to cash-starved rural towns and counties who rely almost exclusively on these funds to meet important public initiatives and also almost exclusively bear the brunt of illness and disease that result from the attendant air, water, and land contamination. Pennsylvania alone has 51 landfills of trash, mainly from NY/NJ, and made $40 million in 2002 from out-of-state dumping. That trash is big business is disheartening from virtually every perspective.
A few elements of her various trails were new to me, e.g., international impact of our domestic efforts to be green. For example, some of New York’s e-waste—old computer monitors and other electronic products gathered in feel-good citywide recycling events—is sent from Manhattan to Guiyu, China where men, women, and children wearing no protective gear mix nitric acid in open vats to extract gold components from these items. Developing nations absorb much of the scrap iron, paper, and plastic that we recycle, but have little by way of worker rights. Add to this that many of the least pleasant jobs in the U.S. necessary for successful reuse efforts often involve a similarly invisible and neglected workforce of Black, Latino, and increasingly elderly populations. The intentional non-mention of this reality, which Royte calls “the dark underside of the green revolution,” is disingenuous and justifies lingering class resentment/suspicion of environmental awareness efforts.
The numbers and information she dropped on the industry-based political analysis were humbling. Virgin papermaking is destructive beyond the harm done to trees, as it is the third largest source of greenhouse gases and requires the dumping of billions of contaminated water. The government provides this industry with $2.6 billion of tax subsidies; recycling and reuse industries get nothing. Royte saved her biggest statistical reveal for the last chapter though: of all the waste generated in the U.S., municipal solid waste (what they pick up from the curb) accounts for only 2% of the total. The other 98% comes from mining and agricultural waste, oil and gas waste, construction and demolition waste, incinerator ash, hazardous waste, etc. This ratio is straight crazy and begs the question of whether we should do anything at all as individuals.
It is clear that large-scale changes in corporate behavior will come only with legislation. Royte repeatedly noted that the European Union is way ahead of the U.S., e.g., building the cost of recycling into the prices of various goods, in virtually every area, but I wanted more from her on the reasons for this. Are the markets there stronger for recycled goods? Does the proximity of EU member-states to each other create an atmosphere for more collective discussion of environmental issues? Are they just superior beings?
Corny as it sounds, I am motivated to make small and large changes in my behavior after reading this, even knowing of the minimal impact. I have no excuse for not recycling pretty much every scrap of paper; I can make buying recycled goods and earth-friendly household products a habit. I can buy and drive less.
At the end, Royte says that one of the most important things she learned in her research was the names of her local sanitation workers. I groaned out loud, but I get her point. Waste everywhere affects someone somewhere and usually in very harmful ways and her connection to her san men makes her mindful of the human impact of her choices. I'm for that.
November 22, 2009
Elizabeth Royte decided one day to find out what happened to her garbage. The result is Garbage Land, a mesmerizing trip through the hidden, but necessary, side of the consumption society.
The waste stream has tripled since 1960, 4.3 pounds per person. In 2003, every American generated 1.31 tons of trash each year, about 2.5 times what a resident of Oslo, Norway produces. The quantities of waste that we produce each day is staggering and technological approaches to managing the waste have evolved rapidly even since the eighties. Sanitary landfills, invented during the fifties in an attempt to control leachate, the intermixing of chemicals and organic materials, and prevent it from entering the groundwater supply, have become hugely expensive to build and maintain. They contain pipes to collect the leachate and return it to the top of the landfill, believing that it stimulates the breakdown of organic materials and speeds up the creation of methane, a valuable gas that is used to produce electricity in many locations.
Other installations produce electricity by burning trash (WTE, or waste-to-energy, plants.) Metal and other obvious non-flammables are pulled from the huge daily loads by large magnets and recycled. The rest is burned and toxic chemicals (remember, people throw out all sorts of hazardous stuff in the trash) are scrubbed from the smoke (most of it anyway) and the resulting ash (at least that's the plan.) The problem is that evidence is mounting that people who live close to WTE plants and landfills (because methane that leaks out often contains a variety of really awful chemicals) show much higher incidence than normal of a variety of ailments.
The numbers are staggering and ironically the costs drive policy (so what else is new.) New York can no longer afford to recycle because the cost of shipping trash off to Pennsylvania (largest importer of trash in the country) is so high they can't afford the additional manpower and vehicles to process the recylables. That means more goes into the landfills or is burned, creating an even more bizarre mixture of chemicals to form who knows what in the landfill. And even 40 mm plastic sheathing at the bottom of these things is not 100% effective.
For those of you wanting to return to the simpler days of yore, a few facts:
1. In mid-nineteenth century New York, residents simply threw their trash out the window for scavengers to ravage. Often, by spring, garbage and less savory material might be two to three feet deep on the streets. Only the wealthy could afford trash collection.
2. Horses left 500,000 pounds of manure a day on Manhattan streets, and 45,000 gallons of urine. Horses worked hard; their average life span was 2.5 years and in 1880 15,000 dead horses littered the streets. Again, wild animals were expected to make the carcasses more portable by stripping the flesh off them so they could be dumped into the bay.
3. Ocean dumping virtually destroyed the famous oyster beds, but provided the land for the World's Fair and today's airports. It wasn't until 1948 that the public opinion demanded the first city dump.
Don't forget that today is the good old days of tomorrow.
The waste stream has tripled since 1960, 4.3 pounds per person. In 2003, every American generated 1.31 tons of trash each year, about 2.5 times what a resident of Oslo, Norway produces. The quantities of waste that we produce each day is staggering and technological approaches to managing the waste have evolved rapidly even since the eighties. Sanitary landfills, invented during the fifties in an attempt to control leachate, the intermixing of chemicals and organic materials, and prevent it from entering the groundwater supply, have become hugely expensive to build and maintain. They contain pipes to collect the leachate and return it to the top of the landfill, believing that it stimulates the breakdown of organic materials and speeds up the creation of methane, a valuable gas that is used to produce electricity in many locations.
Other installations produce electricity by burning trash (WTE, or waste-to-energy, plants.) Metal and other obvious non-flammables are pulled from the huge daily loads by large magnets and recycled. The rest is burned and toxic chemicals (remember, people throw out all sorts of hazardous stuff in the trash) are scrubbed from the smoke (most of it anyway) and the resulting ash (at least that's the plan.) The problem is that evidence is mounting that people who live close to WTE plants and landfills (because methane that leaks out often contains a variety of really awful chemicals) show much higher incidence than normal of a variety of ailments.
The numbers are staggering and ironically the costs drive policy (so what else is new.) New York can no longer afford to recycle because the cost of shipping trash off to Pennsylvania (largest importer of trash in the country) is so high they can't afford the additional manpower and vehicles to process the recylables. That means more goes into the landfills or is burned, creating an even more bizarre mixture of chemicals to form who knows what in the landfill. And even 40 mm plastic sheathing at the bottom of these things is not 100% effective.
For those of you wanting to return to the simpler days of yore, a few facts:
1. In mid-nineteenth century New York, residents simply threw their trash out the window for scavengers to ravage. Often, by spring, garbage and less savory material might be two to three feet deep on the streets. Only the wealthy could afford trash collection.
2. Horses left 500,000 pounds of manure a day on Manhattan streets, and 45,000 gallons of urine. Horses worked hard; their average life span was 2.5 years and in 1880 15,000 dead horses littered the streets. Again, wild animals were expected to make the carcasses more portable by stripping the flesh off them so they could be dumped into the bay.
3. Ocean dumping virtually destroyed the famous oyster beds, but provided the land for the World's Fair and today's airports. It wasn't until 1948 that the public opinion demanded the first city dump.
Don't forget that today is the good old days of tomorrow.
February 17, 2022
It's probably a bit outdated now, but it is a classic that is worth reading if you are interested in the topic.
We live in a throwaway society. We throw away our junk, our natural resources, our civilization, our democracy. Did I miss anything?
We live in a throwaway society. We throw away our junk, our natural resources, our civilization, our democracy. Did I miss anything?
March 24, 2011
I'm going to have some reflection on where all this stuff really goes before I throw away.
I think one of two thing will happen while you read through this book:
1. You're going to feel slightly vindicated as you don't recycle
2. You're going to fee slightly disappointed as you do recycle
Recycling I guess is a good thing. Royte makes it sound as if paper and metal are the only things worth recycling. Plastic has too many variations which cannot be mixed; and requires further energy to melt into some conglomerate. Glass is actually crushed back into a fine sand to be used as a layer in landfills. People in the business of recycling claim plastic to be too much of a waste of time to make any profit.
Leaving the first two R's: Reduce and Reuse the real obligations that will make a difference.
To make any kind of long standing noticeable impact on landfills is going to require a lifestyle change that nobody in America is anywhere near ready to deal with. Everything has to be new, it's cheaper to buy new than to fix, and sanitization/packaging are all part of the marketing ploy. Imagine if in the US we took up a practice like they have in Germany...Re-sterilizing containers and reusing them as they are. Would recycled containers with double or triple the labor cost more than new containers?
It's going to take a lot more than a handfull of people going poop in their backyard and taking their pedally bikes to the grocery to fill up burlap reuseable sacks. It goes all the way back to manufacturing, distribution, and packaging, then acceptance by the public before the dinky recycling at home has any impact.
For all I know we could have more then enough landfill space to use in the foreseeable future. However, I remain curious as to my impact on the landfills...and where does all of my trash and drainwater go in the end.
As others have said, lots of personal observations having more to do with the people and oddities of Royte's journey. But I think enough is still here to get you really thinking about some things.
I think one of two thing will happen while you read through this book:
1. You're going to feel slightly vindicated as you don't recycle
2. You're going to fee slightly disappointed as you do recycle
Recycling I guess is a good thing. Royte makes it sound as if paper and metal are the only things worth recycling. Plastic has too many variations which cannot be mixed; and requires further energy to melt into some conglomerate. Glass is actually crushed back into a fine sand to be used as a layer in landfills. People in the business of recycling claim plastic to be too much of a waste of time to make any profit.
Leaving the first two R's: Reduce and Reuse the real obligations that will make a difference.
To make any kind of long standing noticeable impact on landfills is going to require a lifestyle change that nobody in America is anywhere near ready to deal with. Everything has to be new, it's cheaper to buy new than to fix, and sanitization/packaging are all part of the marketing ploy. Imagine if in the US we took up a practice like they have in Germany...Re-sterilizing containers and reusing them as they are. Would recycled containers with double or triple the labor cost more than new containers?
It's going to take a lot more than a handfull of people going poop in their backyard and taking their pedally bikes to the grocery to fill up burlap reuseable sacks. It goes all the way back to manufacturing, distribution, and packaging, then acceptance by the public before the dinky recycling at home has any impact.
For all I know we could have more then enough landfill space to use in the foreseeable future. However, I remain curious as to my impact on the landfills...and where does all of my trash and drainwater go in the end.
As others have said, lots of personal observations having more to do with the people and oddities of Royte's journey. But I think enough is still here to get you really thinking about some things.
October 29, 2017
Royte put on the investigative journalist hat for this book, digging into the various systems that our modern society uses for waste management. She begins with a thoughtful experiment of weighing and sorting her trash, in her small Brooklyn apartment. She takes it to the next level by following her trash to the processing plants, the landfills, through the sewers to water treatment, and to recycling facilities. This book was written in 2005, and I am sure that some things have not changed, but it is very possible that the system is even more "roboticized" now, 12 years later.
3.5 stars rounded to 4.
3.5 stars rounded to 4.
April 13, 2023
We live in a society driven by consumerism. We package virtually everything, and then immediately toss that packaging into the trash. But where does that trash end up? What are the ramifications of this society-wide behaviour?? Garbage Land takes the reader on a deep dive.
It is a (perhaps too) detailed examination of all things garbage.
I found it a somewhat interesting look into the topic; but not without some faults.
Author Elizabeth Royte is an American science/nature writer. Royte's articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, National Geographic, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, The Nation, Outside, Smithsonian, and other magazines. Her work has been featured in the Best American Science Writing 2004 and the "Best American Science Writing 2009." Royte is a former Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow and a recipient of Bard College's John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service.
Elizabeth Royte:
The book gets off to a bit of a slow start, with a very long introduction, where the author describes a trip she took to the Gowanus Canal. This proved to be a harbinger for the rest of the writing that was to follow. Unfortunately, I found the style of this book to be very long-winded and dry for my tastes; although I am admittedly very picky about how readable my books are.
I felt that more of an interesting story could have been told here.
The writing here loosely follows the author's tracking of her waste output, and eventual efforts to reduce this amount. She recruits her family, including her 3-year-old daughter.
Consumer and industrial waste is an enormous problem. Royte drops this quote:
It wasn't always this way. In this quote, the author talks about the way things used to be:
Unfortunately, reducing the amount of garbage you yourself put into the landfill is just a drop in the pond. She writes:
The book is a very in-depth look into the entire industry of waste management. Some of the garbage-related topics covered in these pages includes:
• A ride along with a garbage truck on its route
• Landfills
• Composting
• Scrap metal
• Electronic waste
• Plastic bottles
• Disposable diapers
• Sewage treatment
• Compost from human feces
• Recycling
Sadly, although she talks at length about composting, she never manages to provide the reader with any actionable advice on the topic. Maybe she just doesn't know... A missed opportunity for sure.
I felt that the whole book seemed to follow this trend. There is lots of talk about numbers, stats, and other data, but little to no practical advice.
***********************
Garbage Land was an interesting book, but I found the writing a bit dry more often than not. I found my attention wandering numerous times here...
A large chunk of the book could also have been edited out without a loss to the overall presentation; IMO.
3 stars.
It is a (perhaps too) detailed examination of all things garbage.
I found it a somewhat interesting look into the topic; but not without some faults.
Author Elizabeth Royte is an American science/nature writer. Royte's articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, National Geographic, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, The Nation, Outside, Smithsonian, and other magazines. Her work has been featured in the Best American Science Writing 2004 and the "Best American Science Writing 2009." Royte is a former Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow and a recipient of Bard College's John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service.
Elizabeth Royte:
The book gets off to a bit of a slow start, with a very long introduction, where the author describes a trip she took to the Gowanus Canal. This proved to be a harbinger for the rest of the writing that was to follow. Unfortunately, I found the style of this book to be very long-winded and dry for my tastes; although I am admittedly very picky about how readable my books are.
I felt that more of an interesting story could have been told here.
The writing here loosely follows the author's tracking of her waste output, and eventual efforts to reduce this amount. She recruits her family, including her 3-year-old daughter.
Consumer and industrial waste is an enormous problem. Royte drops this quote:
"Since 1960, the nation’s municipal waste stream has nearly tripled, reaching a reported peak of 369 million tons in 2002. That’s more stuff, per capita, than any other nation in the world, and 2.5 times the per capita rate of Oslo, Norway. The increase is due partly to increased population but mostly to the habits of average residents, who now throw out, says the EPA, 4.3 pounds of garbage per person per day—1.6 more pounds than thirty years ago. According to the Congressional Research Service, the biggest producers are California, followed by New York, Florida, Texas, and Michigan. BioCycle magazine and the Earth Engineering Center of Columbia University reported in their “State of Garbage in America” report for 2003 that every American generated 1.31 tons of garbage a year.
Slightly less than 27 percent of the aggregate mess was recycled or composted; 7.7 percent was incinerated; and the overwhelming majority, 65.6 percent, was buried in a hole in the ground."
It wasn't always this way. In this quote, the author talks about the way things used to be:
"It’s hard to imagine, but 125 years ago the kitchen trash can didn’t exist. Until municipal collections were organized, in the late 1880s, the stove was the principal means of disposal. But the oven door wasn’t opening and closing all day long, like a kitchen trash can. Food scraps went to farm animals. Individually packaged consumer goods were rare and expensive.
Tin cans were saved for storage or scoops, jars for preserving food. Old clothes were repaired, made over into new clothes, or used for quilting, mattress stuffing, rugs, or rags. Plastic was unknown. As late as 1882, reports Susan Strasser in Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash, a manual on teaching children household economy had to define a wastebasket for readers: “It is for collecting all the torn and useless pieces of paper, and should be emptied every day, care being taken that nothing of value is thus thrown away.”
But what was valued? In the days of household economy manuals, almost all castoffs and scraps could be used as barter. Today, my aluminum cans had cash value to a scrap metal dealer in New Jersey, but my wine bottle, which the city no longer recycled, was dead weight in the garbage truck. Those fourteen ounces were still a commodity, though: the more weight the city buried in landfills, the more money landfill owners pocketed..."
Unfortunately, reducing the amount of garbage you yourself put into the landfill is just a drop in the pond. She writes:
"...Remember William McDonough: “What most people see in their garbage cans is just the tip of a material iceberg: the product itself contains on average only 5 percent of the raw materials involved in the process of making and delivering it.” And remember Paul Hawken: for every 100 pounds of product that’s made, 3,200 pounds of waste are generated..."
The book is a very in-depth look into the entire industry of waste management. Some of the garbage-related topics covered in these pages includes:
• A ride along with a garbage truck on its route
• Landfills
• Composting
• Scrap metal
• Electronic waste
• Plastic bottles
• Disposable diapers
• Sewage treatment
• Compost from human feces
• Recycling
Sadly, although she talks at length about composting, she never manages to provide the reader with any actionable advice on the topic. Maybe she just doesn't know... A missed opportunity for sure.
I felt that the whole book seemed to follow this trend. There is lots of talk about numbers, stats, and other data, but little to no practical advice.
***********************
Garbage Land was an interesting book, but I found the writing a bit dry more often than not. I found my attention wandering numerous times here...
A large chunk of the book could also have been edited out without a loss to the overall presentation; IMO.
3 stars.
January 19, 2023
A look behind the scenes of the life of our garbage. It's well-researched but a bit dry in the storytelling. I kept thinking Mary Roach would have made the subject much more engaging.
July 29, 2014
Possibly one of the most depressing/upsetting topics on the planet. Really well done. Wish I'd read it sooner...
Wish anything had really changed in the 10 years since its publication.
Sigh.
Wish anything had really changed in the 10 years since its publication.
Sigh.
January 21, 2016
This was the most eye-opening book on municipal solid waste I have read so far. It looks not only at landfilling and composting but also at recycling, hazardous waste, electronic waste, and water treatment. The author goes on a personal journey following her waste in order to understand her impact on the world, and it is not pretty.
The author shines a light on the dark side of our lives, on where all the waste goes. Even though you know the answer isn't good, it is worse than you imagine. Sanitation workers are about three times more likely to die during their work than police officers and firemen. Diesel trucks which get three miles per gallon spew air pollution as they make their many rounds. Huge quantities of landfilled waste are actually compostable or recyclable.
Bottle bills in certain states increase the collection of beverage containers for recycling, but the bottles are usually not sent back to the company and refilled; instead, they are often sent to Asia for cheap recycling, wasting many more resources on transporting them and reforming them into new containers, not to mention they are sent to countries with much lower environmental standards and are recycled in cruder ways which pollute more.
Water treatment plants which treat sewage collect solid sludge, dry it, pelletize it, and send it to other states to be used as fertilizer on fields. I never knew such a thing was allowed, and it seems that even though there are regulations for bacteria, there are none for heavy metals and hormones and drugs which may be found in high quantities in the sludge. Also, while the water that goes through these plants is treated for pathogens and bacteria, such things as hormones from birth control and drugs from people flushing pills down the toilet are not removed.
Recycling sounds great but as she points out, it is a dirty, dirty process. "We all love to recycle, but nobody wants to do the actual recycling," she says, and from my experience in the recycling industry she is completely correct. Nobody wants to sort through someone else's sticky, disgusting trash on conveyor belts to find items which might be of value once they are cleaned, sterilized, melted, combined with additives, and reformed. No matter how beneficial this service is for the environment, you don't feel good while doing it, or even while being in the same room with it: you feel disgusting and dirty.
The section on hazardous waste is shocking. She tries to separate out her hazardous waste and dispose of it correctly, but it turns out nobody really knows what "correctly" is, not even sanitation workers, and most people just advise her to disguise it with her regular trash.
She includes a number of facts which I found enlightening; for instance, I never realized that timber extraction and mining are subsidized, as are energy extraction and landfilling. Thus when businessmen complain about how it's "so much cheaper" just to use virgin paper or virgin plastic instead of recycled, I now know how that is possible. I was amazed to learn that even though she asked that her book be printed on post-consumer recycled paper, the publishing company wouldn't do so because they are owned by Time Warner which makes a profit in timber. I'm amazed that anyone is able to make a profit in the recycling industry despite the subsidies for landfilling and incinerating.
The author had a very personal touch and I appreciated this most of all. Throughout the book she continues to document her own trash, instead of merely talking about the city of New York's trash as a whole. She never tries to separate herself from her waste but instead continuously connects the things she throws away to where they end up, going against the grain of thinking that once it's in the trash can it is no longer yours and you no longer have any responsibility for it. She tries composting. She also describes her feelings about trash and about throwing things away, which is something that was really missing from other books I've read about solid waste. She talks about an essay by Calvino where he describes feeling new and clean after throwing things away because by doing so he is separating himself from trash and saying he is not garbage and it feels like a new start.
Even when she is talking to people who have dreams of anaerobic digesters creating energy for cities, she brings up the point that small-scale composting builds communities and brings a connection to the cycle of life whereas municipal large-scale composting with anaerobic digesters is just another man-made industrial system.
I also appreciated that she refrained from having a "What can you do" chapter. It felt a lot more meaningful when she left it up to the reader to decide what to do about it while also stating what she was going to do in the future, namely, still separating her trash and weighing it, buying in bulk rather than in small servings, continuing to compost, and looking into reusables.
After reading this book I realize that modern life is a huge lie. We pretend to be a high-tech society that has figured out amazing solutions for our problems when in reality the system is so convoluted and ridiculous as to be laughable. We bury our trash in huge holes in the ground and then forget about it. We combine our waste with water, and then it is sent to a water treatment plant and separated from the water. We spend billions creating synthetic fertilizer while at the same time spending billions to bury organic waste which could easily be used as fertilizer instead. Our "high-tech" solutions often contain harmful chemicals and use tons of fossil fuels, so that we are poisoning ourselves, depleting our resources, and polluting the world around us all for the sake of the myth that we are superior creatures. The most ridiculous thing is that there are myriad solutions out there, but instead of redesigning the whole system we are just making a terrible system "less bad." I'm not even sure about that because with the increase in packaging it seems that all the efforts to reduce waste are only leading to the situation staying the same rather than getting worse. In a system where huge corporations profit immensely off of waste, of course we have a waste problem.
I appreciated that the author did not view any of the waste solutions as a magic solution - she points out that there are negative sides to all of our technological solutions for waste, and also includes the quote about how most of our problems today come from unexpected side-effects of technological solutions, so it doesn't make sense to think that technology is going to save us from the same problems that technology has created.
Please read this book. The subject is horrible but it is the reality that we live in. There are solutions out there but if you don't know the problems it is hard to look for solutions. After reading this book I would encourage you to read "Cradle to Cradle," which demonstrates some of the solutions, and "the Upcycle," which contains more specific solutions and new ways of thinking for a better world.
The author shines a light on the dark side of our lives, on where all the waste goes. Even though you know the answer isn't good, it is worse than you imagine. Sanitation workers are about three times more likely to die during their work than police officers and firemen. Diesel trucks which get three miles per gallon spew air pollution as they make their many rounds. Huge quantities of landfilled waste are actually compostable or recyclable.
Bottle bills in certain states increase the collection of beverage containers for recycling, but the bottles are usually not sent back to the company and refilled; instead, they are often sent to Asia for cheap recycling, wasting many more resources on transporting them and reforming them into new containers, not to mention they are sent to countries with much lower environmental standards and are recycled in cruder ways which pollute more.
Water treatment plants which treat sewage collect solid sludge, dry it, pelletize it, and send it to other states to be used as fertilizer on fields. I never knew such a thing was allowed, and it seems that even though there are regulations for bacteria, there are none for heavy metals and hormones and drugs which may be found in high quantities in the sludge. Also, while the water that goes through these plants is treated for pathogens and bacteria, such things as hormones from birth control and drugs from people flushing pills down the toilet are not removed.
Recycling sounds great but as she points out, it is a dirty, dirty process. "We all love to recycle, but nobody wants to do the actual recycling," she says, and from my experience in the recycling industry she is completely correct. Nobody wants to sort through someone else's sticky, disgusting trash on conveyor belts to find items which might be of value once they are cleaned, sterilized, melted, combined with additives, and reformed. No matter how beneficial this service is for the environment, you don't feel good while doing it, or even while being in the same room with it: you feel disgusting and dirty.
The section on hazardous waste is shocking. She tries to separate out her hazardous waste and dispose of it correctly, but it turns out nobody really knows what "correctly" is, not even sanitation workers, and most people just advise her to disguise it with her regular trash.
She includes a number of facts which I found enlightening; for instance, I never realized that timber extraction and mining are subsidized, as are energy extraction and landfilling. Thus when businessmen complain about how it's "so much cheaper" just to use virgin paper or virgin plastic instead of recycled, I now know how that is possible. I was amazed to learn that even though she asked that her book be printed on post-consumer recycled paper, the publishing company wouldn't do so because they are owned by Time Warner which makes a profit in timber. I'm amazed that anyone is able to make a profit in the recycling industry despite the subsidies for landfilling and incinerating.
The author had a very personal touch and I appreciated this most of all. Throughout the book she continues to document her own trash, instead of merely talking about the city of New York's trash as a whole. She never tries to separate herself from her waste but instead continuously connects the things she throws away to where they end up, going against the grain of thinking that once it's in the trash can it is no longer yours and you no longer have any responsibility for it. She tries composting. She also describes her feelings about trash and about throwing things away, which is something that was really missing from other books I've read about solid waste. She talks about an essay by Calvino where he describes feeling new and clean after throwing things away because by doing so he is separating himself from trash and saying he is not garbage and it feels like a new start.
Even when she is talking to people who have dreams of anaerobic digesters creating energy for cities, she brings up the point that small-scale composting builds communities and brings a connection to the cycle of life whereas municipal large-scale composting with anaerobic digesters is just another man-made industrial system.
I also appreciated that she refrained from having a "What can you do" chapter. It felt a lot more meaningful when she left it up to the reader to decide what to do about it while also stating what she was going to do in the future, namely, still separating her trash and weighing it, buying in bulk rather than in small servings, continuing to compost, and looking into reusables.
After reading this book I realize that modern life is a huge lie. We pretend to be a high-tech society that has figured out amazing solutions for our problems when in reality the system is so convoluted and ridiculous as to be laughable. We bury our trash in huge holes in the ground and then forget about it. We combine our waste with water, and then it is sent to a water treatment plant and separated from the water. We spend billions creating synthetic fertilizer while at the same time spending billions to bury organic waste which could easily be used as fertilizer instead. Our "high-tech" solutions often contain harmful chemicals and use tons of fossil fuels, so that we are poisoning ourselves, depleting our resources, and polluting the world around us all for the sake of the myth that we are superior creatures. The most ridiculous thing is that there are myriad solutions out there, but instead of redesigning the whole system we are just making a terrible system "less bad." I'm not even sure about that because with the increase in packaging it seems that all the efforts to reduce waste are only leading to the situation staying the same rather than getting worse. In a system where huge corporations profit immensely off of waste, of course we have a waste problem.
I appreciated that the author did not view any of the waste solutions as a magic solution - she points out that there are negative sides to all of our technological solutions for waste, and also includes the quote about how most of our problems today come from unexpected side-effects of technological solutions, so it doesn't make sense to think that technology is going to save us from the same problems that technology has created.
Please read this book. The subject is horrible but it is the reality that we live in. There are solutions out there but if you don't know the problems it is hard to look for solutions. After reading this book I would encourage you to read "Cradle to Cradle," which demonstrates some of the solutions, and "the Upcycle," which contains more specific solutions and new ways of thinking for a better world.
July 3, 2018
Granted this is a little outdated in its stats in today's world, but that doesn't change the fact that this is an extremely powerful read! I am so fascinated about where our garbage goes, and how the whole ecosystem functions. Do the recyclables I send out actually get recycled? Where does the green waste I send out go? The further I dive into this, the more fascinated I am!
Read
March 30, 2022Grabbed this as a Libro.fm ARC, as it just came to audio. The book is super dated and the performer is, how to say, not good. She sounds like she's talking with marbles in her mouth and has a deep, nasally voice (mercury, for example, is pronounced merkury).
December 5, 2007
Interesting read on where everything you throw or flush away goes. The important points for me dealt with recycling and the use of plastics, a.k.a. “Satan’s resin”. This book, though published earlier, was a great complimentary read to The World Without Us. Since reading these two books, I have been very conscious of my use of plastics. But they’re everywhere and never go away. I have truly been enlightened. . .did you know that most toilet paper is made from virgin paper and not recycled? If there was anything that I thought was recycled it was that.
What follows are a few passages of the book that really stood out for me and serve as a terrific synopsis:
“Plastic isn’t truly recyclable in the way that glass, metals, and fibers are. Mixed plastic can be turned into only ONE other product. When their useful life is over, these products cannot be recycled again.” --They then have to be burned (resulting in toxic chemicals being released into the atmosphere) or buried (taking up landfill space and never breaking down).
“Garbage should worry us. It should not prod us. We don’t need better ways to get rid of things. We need to not get rid of things, either by keeping them cycling through the system or not designing and desiring them in the first place.” --This is the concept of zero waste.
“What most people see in their garbage cans is just the tip of a material iceberg: the product itself contains on average only 5 percent of the raw materials involved in the process of making and delivering it.” –William McDonough, author Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We make Things
“We can recycle and compost as much as we want, but if the total waste stream continues to grow. . .we’ll never escape our own mess.” –Well said!
What follows are a few passages of the book that really stood out for me and serve as a terrific synopsis:
“Plastic isn’t truly recyclable in the way that glass, metals, and fibers are. Mixed plastic can be turned into only ONE other product. When their useful life is over, these products cannot be recycled again.” --They then have to be burned (resulting in toxic chemicals being released into the atmosphere) or buried (taking up landfill space and never breaking down).
“Garbage should worry us. It should not prod us. We don’t need better ways to get rid of things. We need to not get rid of things, either by keeping them cycling through the system or not designing and desiring them in the first place.” --This is the concept of zero waste.
“What most people see in their garbage cans is just the tip of a material iceberg: the product itself contains on average only 5 percent of the raw materials involved in the process of making and delivering it.” –William McDonough, author Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We make Things
“We can recycle and compost as much as we want, but if the total waste stream continues to grow. . .we’ll never escape our own mess.” –Well said!
April 15, 2008
A scientist living in New York, Royte wonders where our garbage goes. She begins by sorting and measuring her own waste, then follows the streams of trash with the garbage trucks out to our landfills, recycling plants, and overseas where some of our vast amounts of consumer crap wind up. The depressing reality of the waste stream in the United States can’t quite be leavened by her engaging and funny writing style.
She rides along with the garbage men (a more dangerous and deadly job than being a cop), visits compost heaps, landfills, recycling centers, incinerators, and clean-up parties along the water.
I’ve been quoting her work regularly. More gold in a cell phone than in a ton of ore (100 million cell phones are discarded in the U.S. each year). Lots of our electronics and computer waste is shipped to places like China, where they are scavenged by the poor, placed in open vats of acid, and have their precious metals harvested by hand. It takes 1.8 tons of raw material to make a computer and monitor. Most horrifically, if you believe in recycling, only 2% of this country’s waste comes from municipalities. In other words, every household in the U.S. could recycle everything they used and it wouldn’t change much. Royte also, in meek (but still better than nothing) counterpoint, gives us the figures on what recycling and reuse saves on energy, raw materials, etc.
Royte is too hopeful, given the picture she presents, but I’d recommend this book to everyone
She rides along with the garbage men (a more dangerous and deadly job than being a cop), visits compost heaps, landfills, recycling centers, incinerators, and clean-up parties along the water.
I’ve been quoting her work regularly. More gold in a cell phone than in a ton of ore (100 million cell phones are discarded in the U.S. each year). Lots of our electronics and computer waste is shipped to places like China, where they are scavenged by the poor, placed in open vats of acid, and have their precious metals harvested by hand. It takes 1.8 tons of raw material to make a computer and monitor. Most horrifically, if you believe in recycling, only 2% of this country’s waste comes from municipalities. In other words, every household in the U.S. could recycle everything they used and it wouldn’t change much. Royte also, in meek (but still better than nothing) counterpoint, gives us the figures on what recycling and reuse saves on energy, raw materials, etc.
Royte is too hopeful, given the picture she presents, but I’d recommend this book to everyone
November 16, 2015
Very well written, thought provoking, and even humorous. I hope at least one of the following quotes will entice you to read this book or at least think more about what you buy that you will eventually have to throw away.
"And here was another universal garbage truth: other people's waste is always worse than your own."
"Like most people I tended to do right by the environment-whether avoiding disposables or scrupulously turning off lights-mostly when it saved me money."
"The bureau of labor statistics classifies refuse collection as high hazard work. In fact, garbagemen are three times more likely to be killed on the job than police officers or firefighters."
"The dumps of the Roman empire more than 2000 years old are still leaching today."
"As little as a half an inch of rain in Washington DC can cause sewers to overflow into the Anacostia River which runs through the heart of the city." pg203
"The federal government encourages recycling and reuse but it doesn't require it. If we were paying what we should for virgin resources, e-waste recycling would be much more economical and local governments perhaps could break even on the e-waste recycling, but mining companies, like logging companies, and the oil and gas industry continue to benefit from perverse subsidies under the 1872 mining act. Corporations lease land at five dollars per acre, pay no royalties to the government on minerals they extract, and pass any environmental cleanup bills to taxpayers." 171
"And here was another universal garbage truth: other people's waste is always worse than your own."
"Like most people I tended to do right by the environment-whether avoiding disposables or scrupulously turning off lights-mostly when it saved me money."
"The bureau of labor statistics classifies refuse collection as high hazard work. In fact, garbagemen are three times more likely to be killed on the job than police officers or firefighters."
"The dumps of the Roman empire more than 2000 years old are still leaching today."
"As little as a half an inch of rain in Washington DC can cause sewers to overflow into the Anacostia River which runs through the heart of the city." pg203
"The federal government encourages recycling and reuse but it doesn't require it. If we were paying what we should for virgin resources, e-waste recycling would be much more economical and local governments perhaps could break even on the e-waste recycling, but mining companies, like logging companies, and the oil and gas industry continue to benefit from perverse subsidies under the 1872 mining act. Corporations lease land at five dollars per acre, pay no royalties to the government on minerals they extract, and pass any environmental cleanup bills to taxpayers." 171
January 13, 2010
Now more than ever, I am horrified by my trash. I like books that make me re-examine the way I think about the world. This is one of those books. After reading this book, I am even more disheartened about what I can do to shrink my impact on the planet (but I will still be vigilant and make every effort!)
This book is an eye-opener to the long-lasting effects of garbage and even recycling. The writer's style is casual and conversational, and manages to treat a heavy subject with some levity, but without belittling the issue. It's very educational without being cumbersome or brow-beating.
I learned a lot of interesting facts beyond where trash/recycling/compost/sewage ends up. Things like, when you look at a finished product, you are only seeing about 5% of the resources that were spent making it. End users of a product are a part of the waste problem, but not the whole picture.
I like the conclusion that the author comes to - we shouldn't stop with focusing on what to do with our trash/recycling/compost, but the issue is really about reducing what we throw away at all. All of the "buy green" marketing that's out there only perpetuates the heart of the issue of consumerism, which is what got us in this predicament in the first place.
This book is an eye-opener to the long-lasting effects of garbage and even recycling. The writer's style is casual and conversational, and manages to treat a heavy subject with some levity, but without belittling the issue. It's very educational without being cumbersome or brow-beating.
I learned a lot of interesting facts beyond where trash/recycling/compost/sewage ends up. Things like, when you look at a finished product, you are only seeing about 5% of the resources that were spent making it. End users of a product are a part of the waste problem, but not the whole picture.
I like the conclusion that the author comes to - we shouldn't stop with focusing on what to do with our trash/recycling/compost, but the issue is really about reducing what we throw away at all. All of the "buy green" marketing that's out there only perpetuates the heart of the issue of consumerism, which is what got us in this predicament in the first place.
April 16, 2011
i learned a lot--i had some cynical suspicions confirmed but i also learned to see some things from a different perspective. some things made me feel secure about how i do certain things, others made me feel like i could do better (when can i get a composting toilet installed?? and a gray water system? i'd love to have a couple of "ponds" in my garden!). i definitely think manufacturers can do better and should be held accountable. i feel much less complacent now and i'm definitely tuned in to watch the revolution unfold. because i don't want this to come true: "In the end, garbage will win."
Elizabeth Royte seems like a fun and creative lady, but i wish she hadn't described every trash or recycling or sewage machine in such excruciating detail. and my feeble brain is a bit deficient in numbers-processing, so my eyes glazed over with every passage that was chock full of data, statistics, or any kind of measurement.
despite those personal problems, i think this is a really important book that everyone should read, regardless of their stance on consumption and/or recycling. i don't usually do this, but i've dog-eared a lot of pages and plan to go back to do some underlining and marking up. this is definitely a book to interact with.
Elizabeth Royte seems like a fun and creative lady, but i wish she hadn't described every trash or recycling or sewage machine in such excruciating detail. and my feeble brain is a bit deficient in numbers-processing, so my eyes glazed over with every passage that was chock full of data, statistics, or any kind of measurement.
despite those personal problems, i think this is a really important book that everyone should read, regardless of their stance on consumption and/or recycling. i don't usually do this, but i've dog-eared a lot of pages and plan to go back to do some underlining and marking up. this is definitely a book to interact with.
October 2, 2007
This is a fascinating book about the path our trash and recycling take once they leave the bins outside our houses. I found the author a bit critical, aka mean, in her writing of the people she encountered that were 'in the business' of trash. She wasn't critical of what they did, rather, how it was they looked. If I read one more description of a "rounded faced man" I would have had to close the book for good. These repetitive descriptors distracted me from the topic at hand.
Overall, I think she could have had more suggestions in the "Zero Waste" dept. in terms of how to reduce our footprint locally and globally. However, I do recommend the book, but get it from the library. ;)
Overall, I think she could have had more suggestions in the "Zero Waste" dept. in terms of how to reduce our footprint locally and globally. However, I do recommend the book, but get it from the library. ;)
April 6, 2015
This is a very informative book about what becomes of all of the waste that we humans produce. Unfortunately it is a very depressing book. I caught myself several times thinking that we are doomed to destroy this plant with garbage and pollution. That our population and the trash we've produced so far is just too big of an obstacle to overcome. All of the efforts of recycling and composting just seem a drop in the ocean. And the bottom line always seems to be we do what cost less or makes more money. Considering this book was published ten years ago, I can only imagine how much worse the situation is.
It has made me think about how I can be less of a consumer. But I am overwhelmed at the idea that I could have any change on the situations.
It has made me think about how I can be less of a consumer. But I am overwhelmed at the idea that I could have any change on the situations.
March 8, 2010
Homes didn't used to even have garbage cans 125 years ago -- everything was reused, sold to local businesses to make soap, or composted. Now, whether waste is recycled, burnt or landfilled, the short story is, it's a huge problem for the city and the environment. Landfills inevitably leak harmful chemicals into the environment. Even if you recycled 100% of everything you bought, it takes 7 to 20 times as much waste to produce an item as the end product. The short short story is, reduce consumption. If I'm lucky, I'll remember the lessons of this book always.
September 13, 2007
It's rare for me to finish a book and carry it straightaway to my computer to order all the books in its bibliography, but in this case, that's exactly what I did. It's one of those books that helps one to understand that everything one knows about, oh, say, recycling is completely and utterly wrong. All y'all should read this one, and then tell your friends about it. Meanwhile, I'm shopping for a composting toilet.
January 20, 2017
Reading this book I became more and more surprised about the lack of recycling in America compared to Europe. Nobody seems to know where they have to get rid of their stuff and even more where it goes from there. This book provides a good insite into the story of recycling, although it is quite technical and contains so much detailed information it's hard to grip. It could have been shorter, but nevertheless comes to a good conclusion.
February 21, 2013
This book is filled with fascinating details about where our garbage goes - wet stuff, dry stuff, recyclables. Read it and weep. At times I wished the author had toned down the writing style and written shorter, more direct sentences. But this is a minor quibble. This book deserves a wide following, as we are all at risk of being buried under our own refuse. Informed is forewarned.
May 18, 2016
Mrs. Royte's book tells information about what happens to garbage in the United States after it is discarded. One unique thing is that she tells of the people who deal with the garbage, such as sanitation workers. "Garbage Land" makes one think of the consequences of garbage. I would recommend this book to anyone that produces waste, even if they have an idea of what happens to it.
June 4, 2007
I thought, as a tree-kissing, recycling-obsessed Oregonian I was doing everything right with my garbage. So did the author. I think we both realized that there isn't always a right answer no matter how much you try or how hard you try to educate yourself.
August 16, 2009
My sister recommended this book to me and it is an eye opening read. It really makes you think about your consumption and trash production in a constructive manner. Book is an easy read and more of the writer's experiences intertwined with trash facts then just straight facts etc. Check it out!
March 27, 2022
Really loved the premise of this book, and the things the author did to find out where her trash ends up. She visited loads of interesting places including landfills and recycling plants in the US. The writing style was not for me however, I found most parts boring and not engaging.
May 28, 2015
Fascinating exploration of the various ways waste is dealt with after it's collected. Depressing because of the magnitude of the problems we're creating for ourselves, certainly.
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