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Waste Wars: Dirty Deals, International Rivalries and the Scandalous Afterlife of Rubbish
A globe-trotting investigation into the catastrophic reality of the multi-billion-dollar global garbage trade.
Dumps and landfills around the world are overflowing. The millions of tonnes of garbage generated every day have given rise to waste wars, cons and cover ups across thousands of miles and multiple oceans. And few people have any idea they're happening.
Roaming across five continents, Alexander Clapp delves deep inside the world of Javanese recycling gangsters, cruise ship dismantlers in the Aegean, Tanzanian plastic pickers, whistle-blowing environmentalists in the jungles of Guatemala, and a community of Ghanaian boys who burn Western cellphones and televisions for cents an hour. He reveals how most of our trash actually lives a secret second life, getting shipped, smuggled or dumped from one country onto another, with devastating consequences for the poorest nations of the world.
Waste Wars is a jaw-dropping exposé of how and why, for the last forty years, our garbage has spawned a massive global black market, one that offloads our consumption footprints onto distant continents, pristine landscapes, and unsuspecting populations.
Dumps and landfills around the world are overflowing. The millions of tonnes of garbage generated every day have given rise to waste wars, cons and cover ups across thousands of miles and multiple oceans. And few people have any idea they're happening.
Roaming across five continents, Alexander Clapp delves deep inside the world of Javanese recycling gangsters, cruise ship dismantlers in the Aegean, Tanzanian plastic pickers, whistle-blowing environmentalists in the jungles of Guatemala, and a community of Ghanaian boys who burn Western cellphones and televisions for cents an hour. He reveals how most of our trash actually lives a secret second life, getting shipped, smuggled or dumped from one country onto another, with devastating consequences for the poorest nations of the world.
Waste Wars is a jaw-dropping exposé of how and why, for the last forty years, our garbage has spawned a massive global black market, one that offloads our consumption footprints onto distant continents, pristine landscapes, and unsuspecting populations.
423 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 25, 2025
453 people are currently reading
8216 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 256 reviews
January 26, 2025
While many Americans believe they are recycling their plastic when they sort it at home for collection…this plastic often ends up as waste in developing countries with poor waste management capabilities and ultimately finds it way into rivers, oceans, and landscapes. letter from US Congress members to the President in October, 2020, quoted in Waste Wars
I feel dumbfounded and quite stupid. For fifty years I have pat myself on the back for recycling. We took newspapers, glass, and metal containers to a center long before we had roadside pickup. We now have a large bin for paper, cans, glass, and plastic which is picked up with the other trash. What isn’t taken roadside–styrofoam and grocery bags and batteries and electronic equipment–we haul to the local recycling center.
I figured it was being recycled and not turning into trash. That we were doing the right thing. But reading Waste Wars I realize that all that stuff doesn’t magically turn into useful new stuff. It is shipped across the world, dumped in Third World nations, processed by people with no protection against the toxins in the waste, and some of it just ends up in the ocean or a landfill, polluting the world. It is a “crime” of injustice under the guise of a false solution. It has been called “toxic terrorism” and “garbage imperialism.”
Clapp followed the trash across the world, explaining the dark story behind “recycling”, who makes money out of trash, and who pays the price. Clapp shows how former colonies and developing nations are being exploited. How big business manufacturing has skewed the story with untruths.
Electronic equipment like phones and computers are taken apart in Ghana. But some of this equipment is used by teenagers called the Browser Boys. You have met one online. They steal photos and pose as attractive folk wanting to get to know you…asking for financial help…swindling money from the very Westerners who have indulated their country with their trash.
Recycling metal is important, especially the rare metals used in electronics, and steel which can be recycled again and again. Shipbreaking–in which huge ocean liners are dismantled–is both essential and a big business, and also “an ecological nightmare”. Along with steel are toxic chemicals; in Bangladesh, workers drop a live chicken into sections of the hull to check for hazards before entering. A study in Taiwan showed one out of four shipbreaking workers died of cancer.
And plastics! In under 100 years, plastics went from discovery to infiltrating every aspect of our life and our world—and our body. “Recycling never prevents final disposal; it merely delays it,” Clapp warns.
The United States never ratified the Basel Convention. For years we’ve been shipping our garbage abroad. But it also means that other countries are allowed to ship all kinds of stuff to us. from Waste Wars by Alexander Clapp
I have to rethink everything. Like that grocery store that packages all its vegetables in plastic and styrofoam.
Our current government will be dismissing initiatives that make the world a safer place. What we have created and are destroying is frankly, quite terrifying.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.
I feel dumbfounded and quite stupid. For fifty years I have pat myself on the back for recycling. We took newspapers, glass, and metal containers to a center long before we had roadside pickup. We now have a large bin for paper, cans, glass, and plastic which is picked up with the other trash. What isn’t taken roadside–styrofoam and grocery bags and batteries and electronic equipment–we haul to the local recycling center.
I figured it was being recycled and not turning into trash. That we were doing the right thing. But reading Waste Wars I realize that all that stuff doesn’t magically turn into useful new stuff. It is shipped across the world, dumped in Third World nations, processed by people with no protection against the toxins in the waste, and some of it just ends up in the ocean or a landfill, polluting the world. It is a “crime” of injustice under the guise of a false solution. It has been called “toxic terrorism” and “garbage imperialism.”
Clapp followed the trash across the world, explaining the dark story behind “recycling”, who makes money out of trash, and who pays the price. Clapp shows how former colonies and developing nations are being exploited. How big business manufacturing has skewed the story with untruths.
Electronic equipment like phones and computers are taken apart in Ghana. But some of this equipment is used by teenagers called the Browser Boys. You have met one online. They steal photos and pose as attractive folk wanting to get to know you…asking for financial help…swindling money from the very Westerners who have indulated their country with their trash.
Recycling metal is important, especially the rare metals used in electronics, and steel which can be recycled again and again. Shipbreaking–in which huge ocean liners are dismantled–is both essential and a big business, and also “an ecological nightmare”. Along with steel are toxic chemicals; in Bangladesh, workers drop a live chicken into sections of the hull to check for hazards before entering. A study in Taiwan showed one out of four shipbreaking workers died of cancer.
And plastics! In under 100 years, plastics went from discovery to infiltrating every aspect of our life and our world—and our body. “Recycling never prevents final disposal; it merely delays it,” Clapp warns.
The United States never ratified the Basel Convention. For years we’ve been shipping our garbage abroad. But it also means that other countries are allowed to ship all kinds of stuff to us. from Waste Wars by Alexander Clapp
I have to rethink everything. Like that grocery store that packages all its vegetables in plastic and styrofoam.
Our current government will be dismissing initiatives that make the world a safer place. What we have created and are destroying is frankly, quite terrifying.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.
December 16, 2024
This was a really interesting read. It's book about the garbage trade, but even more so it's a book about international inequalities told through the story of how trash gets moved from one place to another. I learned a ton (and not just about the global garbage trade, but also about the shipping industry, the history of plastic, even voodoo cult in Western Africa). Very much recommend.
August 25, 2025
This is an excellent book. It points out the sham of recycling at any cost. Wealthy nations shift trash to poor countries so they can feel better. Plastics, ships, and electronics vanish and are assumed to be made into new materials. Instead, this book points out that the materials are washed into the ocean, stored in heaps, torn apart under unsafe conditions, and used for unsafe purposes such as fuel for producing tofu and crackers.
Sham recycling allows the well-heeled elites to smugly buy new cell phones every time a new model comes out, guzzle water from single use bottles, and go on cruises all the while deluding themselves that the materials are safely handled and completely recycled in a manner that we would manage the materials in our own countries.
Stop and think. If this were the case, why is it hugely profitable to send plastic scrap from California to the Marshall Islands, potato chip bags to Indonesia, cruise ships to Turkey and southwest Asia and cell phones and computer scrap to Ghana? It is profitable because the environmental laws in those countries are lax, and the people work for a pittance under conditions that would not be allowed in wealthier nations.
Consumerism and the drive by businesses to sell more stuff by rendering the old stuff obsolete by designing it to fail or preventing it from being repaired. I had to get rid of a cell phone primarily because purchasing a new battery was as expensive as getting a new phone with a new battery.
It is time to stop the madness.
Sham recycling allows the well-heeled elites to smugly buy new cell phones every time a new model comes out, guzzle water from single use bottles, and go on cruises all the while deluding themselves that the materials are safely handled and completely recycled in a manner that we would manage the materials in our own countries.
Stop and think. If this were the case, why is it hugely profitable to send plastic scrap from California to the Marshall Islands, potato chip bags to Indonesia, cruise ships to Turkey and southwest Asia and cell phones and computer scrap to Ghana? It is profitable because the environmental laws in those countries are lax, and the people work for a pittance under conditions that would not be allowed in wealthier nations.
Consumerism and the drive by businesses to sell more stuff by rendering the old stuff obsolete by designing it to fail or preventing it from being repaired. I had to get rid of a cell phone primarily because purchasing a new battery was as expensive as getting a new phone with a new battery.
It is time to stop the madness.
March 10, 2025
I really want everyone to read this
March 29, 2025
This is officially in my top 3 favorite books ever.
I can’t learn my lesson about not reading first-person pop-sci books. But solid waste management is close to my heart and this one actually is done well. The author lets the story take lead instead of his wild adventures and lifestyle like that Dinosaur book I read earlier this year.
As comedy legend Bill Burr said, “everything you ever owned is somewhere”
This is one of those books where I feel stupid for not having already known all this stuff, even though I should feel smart for learning. The author reveals the clear path of the history of colonialism as wealth is extracted from those under the boot of richer countries, then a few miles from those ports, new ports are built to ship the waste out of the imperial core and back to the over-exploited countries. As a person who knows a lot about garbage and a lot about imperialism, I feel dumb for not having had it put in such an obvious, succinct way.
This is the first book ever that I actually bought legally twice: audiobook, then the hardcover. And of course I pirated the ebook to highlight notes. I’ll be bringing it around all the solid waste people I know to convince them to read it and lobby for regulations that actually protect EVERYONE instead of just offloading first-world’s trash onto the 3rd world.
I started my environmental journey getting the recycling program off the ground in my high school. I got an award for it made of down-cycled plastic bottles from my home county. My entire identity was being that annoying kid who makes people recycle. This book’s clear demonstration of harm caused by what actually happens to all those goddamn plastic bottles has resulted in an existential crisis. Maybe it would have been ultimately better if I had just thrown all that plastic away.
Notice: RECYCLING EVERYTHING ELSE IS STILL ULTIMATELY BETTER THAN LANDFILLING. I’ll still be recycling all my plastic bottles etc because I hate myself.
The story of waste is the story of capitalism. As capitalist over-production fills our world with more shit we don’t need or want, capitalist innovation claims to have the solution. That solution? Poison the 3rd World with it. The capitalist innovators that strive to extract as much wealth as possible from developing countries now dump as much junk onto them as possible. They want to ban single-use plastics? Sorry the IMF says no. See the final quote at the bottom of the review.
If you want to understand why the United States of America is, to its very core, an evil nation, look no further than the Basel Convention, an international treaty to outlaw dumping hazardous waste onto developing countries. AmeriKKKa still hasn’t ratified it after nearly 40 years despite 191 other countries having done so. In 2019 it was amended to include plastic waste and guess who didn’t sign it.
My favorite part of the book was about what happens to consumer electronics. A big chunk of electronics gets “donated” to Ghana. Most of it is useless junk that gets scrapped by improperly burning the plastic to harvest the copper and other elements. But of the electronics that do still work, the data gets harvested off of it and used by scammers that catfish old men out of their money with the insta photos and nudes from that old phone or computer you threw out. Bravo to that hustle, gentlemen. The West deserves it and you deserve every dime to extract from those marks.
Remember to fully wipe and zero out all computers, phones, and drives before you recycle them or give them to someone else. Who knows what you might be able to find on them….
While the solutions to our over-abundance of waste are obvious, I wish the author had spent more time spelling them out. These solutions are:
• ban the manufacture and selling of single-use plastics
• enshrine the right to repair into law
• sign the goddamn Basel Convention
• nationalize all chemical companies that caused plastic pollution by driving the creation of the market knowing their products were harmful and use every last penny of profit to fix the damage already done while halting the manufacturing of useless plastic crap.
• imprison every past, present, and future executive of Coca-Cola.
• require all consumer electronics manufacturer and plastic crap manufacturer to invest in the construction of proper recycling facilities in the West and the 3rd world.
• Legally require all manufacturers to take back any product they sell and dispose of it properly.
• Abolish all intellectual property laws associated with preventing the repair or maintenance of any physical product.
• Nationalize waste management and outlaw export of all waste products. We need those resources at home!
There are too many good quotes from this book for me to pull so to keep this review from tripling in length I’ll just leave these 2:
“Products designed to take seconds to consume became the objects of months-long journeys from one side of the world to the other. To attempt to cycle tiny pieces of carbon back into production streams, megatons of carbon would be unleashed shipping them from one continent to another. Communities scattered across the equator with little access to technology or economic mobility or clean water were enlisted to receive broken computers, retired cruise ships, discarded water bottles, for the simple reason that we made too much of it all—then balked at being held accountable for its fate.”
“Let’s play a game. You come from a poor country. I come from a rich one. The place where you were born has little money and less opportunity. But it has a bunch of real wealth. There are forests, mines, cotton fields, oil palms, millions of acres of fertile soil. Your only problem is that it’s difficult to make use of it all. Long before you or I can remember, my ancestors acquired much of it. And somehow, generations later, even after my people have agreed to leave, your economy is still predicated on shipping your resources to me. It’s an injustice, I concede, so let me offer something back to you. I can’t let you have your trees, no, but what if I were to sell you… all this old junk mail that may have been made from them? I can’t let you have a gold industry of your own. But what if I sold you… these used cell phones that possess minuscule traces of gold that could have come from your land? I can’t offer you your cotton fields. But how about these… secondhand clothes?”
I can’t learn my lesson about not reading first-person pop-sci books. But solid waste management is close to my heart and this one actually is done well. The author lets the story take lead instead of his wild adventures and lifestyle like that Dinosaur book I read earlier this year.
As comedy legend Bill Burr said, “everything you ever owned is somewhere”
This is one of those books where I feel stupid for not having already known all this stuff, even though I should feel smart for learning. The author reveals the clear path of the history of colonialism as wealth is extracted from those under the boot of richer countries, then a few miles from those ports, new ports are built to ship the waste out of the imperial core and back to the over-exploited countries. As a person who knows a lot about garbage and a lot about imperialism, I feel dumb for not having had it put in such an obvious, succinct way.
This is the first book ever that I actually bought legally twice: audiobook, then the hardcover. And of course I pirated the ebook to highlight notes. I’ll be bringing it around all the solid waste people I know to convince them to read it and lobby for regulations that actually protect EVERYONE instead of just offloading first-world’s trash onto the 3rd world.
I started my environmental journey getting the recycling program off the ground in my high school. I got an award for it made of down-cycled plastic bottles from my home county. My entire identity was being that annoying kid who makes people recycle. This book’s clear demonstration of harm caused by what actually happens to all those goddamn plastic bottles has resulted in an existential crisis. Maybe it would have been ultimately better if I had just thrown all that plastic away.
Notice: RECYCLING EVERYTHING ELSE IS STILL ULTIMATELY BETTER THAN LANDFILLING. I’ll still be recycling all my plastic bottles etc because I hate myself.
The story of waste is the story of capitalism. As capitalist over-production fills our world with more shit we don’t need or want, capitalist innovation claims to have the solution. That solution? Poison the 3rd World with it. The capitalist innovators that strive to extract as much wealth as possible from developing countries now dump as much junk onto them as possible. They want to ban single-use plastics? Sorry the IMF says no. See the final quote at the bottom of the review.
If you want to understand why the United States of America is, to its very core, an evil nation, look no further than the Basel Convention, an international treaty to outlaw dumping hazardous waste onto developing countries. AmeriKKKa still hasn’t ratified it after nearly 40 years despite 191 other countries having done so. In 2019 it was amended to include plastic waste and guess who didn’t sign it.
My favorite part of the book was about what happens to consumer electronics. A big chunk of electronics gets “donated” to Ghana. Most of it is useless junk that gets scrapped by improperly burning the plastic to harvest the copper and other elements. But of the electronics that do still work, the data gets harvested off of it and used by scammers that catfish old men out of their money with the insta photos and nudes from that old phone or computer you threw out. Bravo to that hustle, gentlemen. The West deserves it and you deserve every dime to extract from those marks.
Remember to fully wipe and zero out all computers, phones, and drives before you recycle them or give them to someone else. Who knows what you might be able to find on them….
While the solutions to our over-abundance of waste are obvious, I wish the author had spent more time spelling them out. These solutions are:
• ban the manufacture and selling of single-use plastics
• enshrine the right to repair into law
• sign the goddamn Basel Convention
• nationalize all chemical companies that caused plastic pollution by driving the creation of the market knowing their products were harmful and use every last penny of profit to fix the damage already done while halting the manufacturing of useless plastic crap.
• imprison every past, present, and future executive of Coca-Cola.
• require all consumer electronics manufacturer and plastic crap manufacturer to invest in the construction of proper recycling facilities in the West and the 3rd world.
• Legally require all manufacturers to take back any product they sell and dispose of it properly.
• Abolish all intellectual property laws associated with preventing the repair or maintenance of any physical product.
• Nationalize waste management and outlaw export of all waste products. We need those resources at home!
There are too many good quotes from this book for me to pull so to keep this review from tripling in length I’ll just leave these 2:
“Products designed to take seconds to consume became the objects of months-long journeys from one side of the world to the other. To attempt to cycle tiny pieces of carbon back into production streams, megatons of carbon would be unleashed shipping them from one continent to another. Communities scattered across the equator with little access to technology or economic mobility or clean water were enlisted to receive broken computers, retired cruise ships, discarded water bottles, for the simple reason that we made too much of it all—then balked at being held accountable for its fate.”
“Let’s play a game. You come from a poor country. I come from a rich one. The place where you were born has little money and less opportunity. But it has a bunch of real wealth. There are forests, mines, cotton fields, oil palms, millions of acres of fertile soil. Your only problem is that it’s difficult to make use of it all. Long before you or I can remember, my ancestors acquired much of it. And somehow, generations later, even after my people have agreed to leave, your economy is still predicated on shipping your resources to me. It’s an injustice, I concede, so let me offer something back to you. I can’t let you have your trees, no, but what if I were to sell you… all this old junk mail that may have been made from them? I can’t let you have a gold industry of your own. But what if I sold you… these used cell phones that possess minuscule traces of gold that could have come from your land? I can’t offer you your cotton fields. But how about these… secondhand clothes?”
June 1, 2025
I had such high hopes for this book. I wanted to learn where all my trash ended up and what I could do to reduce my trash footprint including a better understanding of recycling. This was not that book. There were a few glaring issues:
1). Very little evidence presented for most of the issues examined and zero comparison to any other industry. While journalism, the field of the author, may have relatively few deaths every year (some of which happen because journalists choose to chase a dangerous story) he seems surprised that people die in industrial settings. The anecdotal stories of deaths in ship dismantling don’t offer any comparison to shipbuilding, nor any other industry.
2). The author’s journalistic style doesn’t cross over well to serious readers of an issue. I don’t need hype to make me want to know more. I already picked up the book, now show me the facts and details. There were too many “headlines” with squishy language. “Probably”, “perhaps”, “may”, littered every topic
3). The intermingling of industry and politics is not new and isn’t necessarily a sign that the industry is bad. It may fuel a leader you don’t care for, but does that make it good when it fuels a leader you like?? Again, very naive.
Such promise, but so few facts delivered and no courses of action suggested. So disappointing.
1). Very little evidence presented for most of the issues examined and zero comparison to any other industry. While journalism, the field of the author, may have relatively few deaths every year (some of which happen because journalists choose to chase a dangerous story) he seems surprised that people die in industrial settings. The anecdotal stories of deaths in ship dismantling don’t offer any comparison to shipbuilding, nor any other industry.
2). The author’s journalistic style doesn’t cross over well to serious readers of an issue. I don’t need hype to make me want to know more. I already picked up the book, now show me the facts and details. There were too many “headlines” with squishy language. “Probably”, “perhaps”, “may”, littered every topic
3). The intermingling of industry and politics is not new and isn’t necessarily a sign that the industry is bad. It may fuel a leader you don’t care for, but does that make it good when it fuels a leader you like?? Again, very naive.
Such promise, but so few facts delivered and no courses of action suggested. So disappointing.
March 24, 2025
I knew we had a problem with our collective waste, but I didn't realize the massive, global issue it was. This is a "must read" for anyone concerned with the longevity of the human race on this planet. From electronics to shipping to toxic waste and especially plastics, the author exposes the workings and consequences of our "disposable" lifestyles, as well as shedding light on many myths about recycling. The stories he shares from his first-hand investigative reporting around the globe make this book an interesting yet disturbing read. It should cause us to seriously reevaluate many of our purchasing choices and how we get rid of our trash.
July 24, 2025
“Ο πόλεμος των σκουπιδιών: Ανταποκρίσεις από τις παγκόσμιες χωματερές” - Alexander Clapp (εκδ. Δώμα, μτφ. Δέσποινα Κανελλοπούλου)
Η αλήθεια είναι πως το διάβασα με εγκυκλοπαιδική διάθεση, βέβαιη πως δεν θα με αφορά και τόσο, όμως, είναι ένα από τα πιο ενημερωτικά, αποκαλυπτικά και παράξενα πράγματα που έχω διαβάσει. Βοηθάει κατά την αφήγηση η σφαιρική γνώση του θέματος (ναι σα τη Γη η οποία λιώνει κάτω από σωρούς πλαστικού αυτή τη στιγμή) που κατέχει ο Clapp. Μάλιστα, τον φαντάζομαι να κρατάει σημειώσεις, φανερά αγανακτισμένος στις πιο βρώμικες γωνίες των λιμανιών, χώρους ανακύκλωσης τοξικών ουσιών και φυσικά στην κορυφή μιας πελώριας πυραμίδας σκουπιδιών σε χώρους υγειονομικής ταφής (σε χωματερή ντε).
Έξυπνο αλλά όχι ενοχλητικό, ωστόσο βαθιά λυπηρό.
«Κάθε βδομάδα η ανθρωπότητα παράγει καινούργια πράγματα ίσα με το βάρος της, κι απ' αυτά υπολογίζεται πως, σε παγκόσμια βάση, μόνο το 1% εξακολουθεί να χρησιμοποιείται ένα εξάμηνο μετά την αγορά του. Οι καταναλωτικές μας συνήθειες που απορρέουν απ' την παραγωγή και χρήση τέτοιων αγαθών και υπηρεσιών ευθύνονται πλέον για πάνω από τις μισές συνολικές εκπομπές άνθρακα. Κάθε μέρα η ανθρωπότητα πετάει στα σκουπίδια 1,5 δισεκατομμύριο πλαστικά ποτηράκια, σχεδόν 115 εκατομμύρια κιλά ρούχα, 220 εκατομμύρια αλουμινένια κουτάκια, 3 εκατομμύρια ελαστικά αυτοκινήτων.
Σε κάθε άνθρωπο αντιστοιχεί αυτή τη στιγμή λίγο πάνω από ένας τόνος πεταμένο πλαστικό - σκορπισμένο στην ξηρά, θαμμένο στη γη ή αδέσποτο στη θάλασσα και είναι σχεδόν βέβαιο ότι το μεγαλύτερο μέρος αυτού του πλαστικού θα παραμείνει στον πλανήτη για χιλιάδες, ίσως κι εκατοντάδες χιλιάδες χρόνια μετά από μας. Μόνο στους ωκεανούς, σε κάθε άνθρωπο αναλογούν 21.000 τεμάχια πλαστικού - σακούλες σουπερμάρκετ και πλαστικοί δακτύλιοι από εξάδες μπίρας και καπάκια μπουκαλιών. Ως το 2050 η συνολική τους μάζα θα έχει υπερβεί το βάρος όλων των ψαριών του πλανήτη, ενώ κάθε έξι χρόνια αναμένεται να διπλασιάζεται. Εν τω μεταξύ, στο ένα λεπτό που σας πήρε να διαβάσετε αυτή την παράγραφο, άλλο 1 εκατομμύριο πλαστικά μπουκάλια πετάχτηκαν στα σκουπίδια, κι άλλη μια καρότσα με πλαστικά έχει καταλήξει στις θάλασσες.»
Η αλήθεια είναι πως το διάβασα με εγκυκλοπαιδική διάθεση, βέβαιη πως δεν θα με αφορά και τόσο, όμως, είναι ένα από τα πιο ενημερωτικά, αποκαλυπτικά και παράξενα πράγματα που έχω διαβάσει. Βοηθάει κατά την αφήγηση η σφαιρική γνώση του θέματος (ναι σα τη Γη η οποία λιώνει κάτω από σωρούς πλαστικού αυτή τη στιγμή) που κατέχει ο Clapp. Μάλιστα, τον φαντάζομαι να κρατάει σημειώσεις, φανερά αγανακτισμένος στις πιο βρώμικες γωνίες των λιμανιών, χώρους ανακύκλωσης τοξικών ουσιών και φυσικά στην κορυφή μιας πελώριας πυραμίδας σκουπιδιών σε χώρους υγειονομικής ταφής (σε χωματερή ντε).
Έξυπνο αλλά όχι ενοχλητικό, ωστόσο βαθιά λυπηρό.
«Κάθε βδομάδα η ανθρωπότητα παράγει καινούργια πράγματα ίσα με το βάρος της, κι απ' αυτά υπολογίζεται πως, σε παγκόσμια βάση, μόνο το 1% εξακολουθεί να χρησιμοποιείται ένα εξάμηνο μετά την αγορά του. Οι καταναλωτικές μας συνήθειες που απορρέουν απ' την παραγωγή και χρήση τέτοιων αγαθών και υπηρεσιών ευθύνονται πλέον για πάνω από τις μισές συνολικές εκπομπές άνθρακα. Κάθε μέρα η ανθρωπότητα πετάει στα σκουπίδια 1,5 δισεκατομμύριο πλαστικά ποτηράκια, σχεδόν 115 εκατομμύρια κιλά ρούχα, 220 εκατομμύρια αλουμινένια κουτάκια, 3 εκατομμύρια ελαστικά αυτοκινήτων.
Σε κάθε άνθρωπο αντιστοιχεί αυτή τη στιγμή λίγο πάνω από ένας τόνος πεταμένο πλαστικό - σκορπισμένο στην ξηρά, θαμμένο στη γη ή αδέσποτο στη θάλασσα και είναι σχεδόν βέβαιο ότι το μεγαλύτερο μέρος αυτού του πλαστικού θα παραμείνει στον πλανήτη για χιλιάδες, ίσως κι εκατοντάδες χιλιάδες χρόνια μετά από μας. Μόνο στους ωκεανούς, σε κάθε άνθρωπο αναλογούν 21.000 τεμάχια πλαστικού - σακούλες σουπερμάρκετ και πλαστικοί δακτύλιοι από εξάδες μπίρας και καπάκια μπουκαλιών. Ως το 2050 η συνολική τους μάζα θα έχει υπερβεί το βάρος όλων των ψαριών του πλανήτη, ενώ κάθε έξι χρόνια αναμένεται να διπλασιάζεται. Εν τω μεταξύ, στο ένα λεπτό που σας πήρε να διαβάσετε αυτή την παράγραφο, άλλο 1 εκατομμύριο πλαστικά μπουκάλια πετάχτηκαν στα σκουπίδια, κι άλλη μια καρότσα με πλαστικά έχει καταλήξει στις θάλασσες.»
November 2, 2024
New Cosmos has an animated cold open on its Clair Patterson episode "A Grave Threat." It is an effective cold open. The visuals are great with the magenta
Blob
-like goo. The sense is one of madness, not science. This scene is out of someone experiencing a paranoid delusion as he sees the secret poison that covers the world...but he is right.
Anyway, If you are looking to have that experience, this is the book for you!
Waste Wars is about how garbage becomes nothing. Spoilers: it doesn't. Instead, the reader is introduced to different global sites that have become the receptacles of the world's garbage. Some are illicit, cases of literal toxic waste sites discovered without a clear chain of custody. Most are permitted, representing a trade in refuse with the flow going from wealthier nations to poorer ones, usually in ways that represent a sort of de facto colonialism. Many are praised: the book is about why that is wrong.
The major stops are Guatemala, Ghana, Turkey, and Indonesia. The industries here (possibly excluding the first) amount to greenwashing. The premise is that this trash is going to locations that can reclaim value from it in an environmentally sound manner where benefit inures as much to the nations getting the trash, in terms of a forward-thinking industry that skips over that dirty period of growth. Meanwhile the nations that get rid of the junk that is not economically viable for them to process. The catch-22 there being that the reason they are not economically viable is due to their own environmental regulations, whereas the other nations have no such protections.
It is not colonialism, but if you hum a few bars it will play along, specifically in the way that it reduplicates the resource extraction mode of colonialism, with one nation extracting material wealth from another, building infrastructure alleged to benefit the other nation (but that really only helps with the wealth extraction), but in a Bizzaroland format where it is the export of material detriment and the negative environmental externalities. And not even that sometimes, in that the primary market for what of value can be extracted from the trash is the exporters, in their constant need for more raw material to turn into junk after a brief phase of use.
The book is at its best when the text takes on a Wolfeian flair. The author visits these sites and asks questions, including some cool but admittedly unproductive shoeleather investigation and with plenty of focus on the affected parties. The Ghana section is the best in that the author view expands to cover the complexity of the multi-party business with a multi-layered geography. I had a passing knowledge of some of the areas here, specifically shipbreaking, but this is a good look, containing both a focused look through individuals and a global, macroeconomic picture of what is going on and why it matters. It is powerful stuff.
The book's structure is awful. Its chapters are tiny. I think that the goal is short attention span spackle, but instead it makes the book feel like a much longer read than it is. The tone is harsh and condemning. I generally feel that this is warranted, given the subject matter, but in congress with the chapter style it gets A Bit Much - you made this conclusion in the last chapter three pages ago; I feel more distracted than persuaded seeing it repeated. I am also just enough of a Libertarian to struggle with parts of the premise, even with being enough of a historian not to.
The most difficult chapter is the one on plastic. The author's unstated contention is that some day we will look on plastic like DDT or leaded gas. Plastic's recyclability is as much a myth as a safe cigarette, and with about as much industry meddling. It, or so the book contends, it is functionally not disposable, becoming a permanent pollutant with no known true removal.
There is no call to action here. The introduction suggests that the author has stopped using single-use plastics. But myself, even if I wanted to, I am not sure that I could, looking at the role that some play in my life. There is a whole infrastructure that is not there to support such a change, at least for me and my needs. There is also no reason to single out single-use plastics when the problem is plastic in general. There is some moments of anti-consumption talk in the book, but it falls into the cliche of anti-technological thought in general. Yes, people do wasteful things with their smartphones, but what is the acceptable ratio of frivolity to seriousness? Is it like Blackstone's formulation where one suicide prevention is worth 10 people radicalized? And (here comes that irritating Libertarian again) can you trust giving someone the power to try and mitigate that?
So yes, if you are like me, you will be reading these words on an e-reader made of plastic, drinking a liquid from a plastic container, eating a breakfast that you cooked yourself, but that every component thereof was contained in plastic in some way and that used plastic cookware, seeing through glasses with plastic lenses in a plastic frame and think 'well, ****.' To some extent, that applies to all the book's arguments. I would like to believe that there is some way to factor in the price of cleanup to different goods, but short of rolling back other environmental legislation (hey, for a Decision '24 bonus round, that might happen!) it would take a reduction in standard of living that goes past a sort of idealized social leveling and into real harm for some people.
Still a recommend for its solid journalism with bite, but know that you're going into World Made by Hand or Parable of the Sower here.
My thanks to the author, Alexander Clapp, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Little, Brown and Company, for making the ARC available to me.
Anyway, If you are looking to have that experience, this is the book for you!
Waste Wars is about how garbage becomes nothing. Spoilers: it doesn't. Instead, the reader is introduced to different global sites that have become the receptacles of the world's garbage. Some are illicit, cases of literal toxic waste sites discovered without a clear chain of custody. Most are permitted, representing a trade in refuse with the flow going from wealthier nations to poorer ones, usually in ways that represent a sort of de facto colonialism. Many are praised: the book is about why that is wrong.
The major stops are Guatemala, Ghana, Turkey, and Indonesia. The industries here (possibly excluding the first) amount to greenwashing. The premise is that this trash is going to locations that can reclaim value from it in an environmentally sound manner where benefit inures as much to the nations getting the trash, in terms of a forward-thinking industry that skips over that dirty period of growth. Meanwhile the nations that get rid of the junk that is not economically viable for them to process. The catch-22 there being that the reason they are not economically viable is due to their own environmental regulations, whereas the other nations have no such protections.
It is not colonialism, but if you hum a few bars it will play along, specifically in the way that it reduplicates the resource extraction mode of colonialism, with one nation extracting material wealth from another, building infrastructure alleged to benefit the other nation (but that really only helps with the wealth extraction), but in a Bizzaroland format where it is the export of material detriment and the negative environmental externalities. And not even that sometimes, in that the primary market for what of value can be extracted from the trash is the exporters, in their constant need for more raw material to turn into junk after a brief phase of use.
The book is at its best when the text takes on a Wolfeian flair. The author visits these sites and asks questions, including some cool but admittedly unproductive shoeleather investigation and with plenty of focus on the affected parties. The Ghana section is the best in that the author view expands to cover the complexity of the multi-party business with a multi-layered geography. I had a passing knowledge of some of the areas here, specifically shipbreaking, but this is a good look, containing both a focused look through individuals and a global, macroeconomic picture of what is going on and why it matters. It is powerful stuff.
The book's structure is awful. Its chapters are tiny. I think that the goal is short attention span spackle, but instead it makes the book feel like a much longer read than it is. The tone is harsh and condemning. I generally feel that this is warranted, given the subject matter, but in congress with the chapter style it gets A Bit Much - you made this conclusion in the last chapter three pages ago; I feel more distracted than persuaded seeing it repeated. I am also just enough of a Libertarian to struggle with parts of the premise, even with being enough of a historian not to.
The most difficult chapter is the one on plastic. The author's unstated contention is that some day we will look on plastic like DDT or leaded gas. Plastic's recyclability is as much a myth as a safe cigarette, and with about as much industry meddling. It, or so the book contends, it is functionally not disposable, becoming a permanent pollutant with no known true removal.
There is no call to action here. The introduction suggests that the author has stopped using single-use plastics. But myself, even if I wanted to, I am not sure that I could, looking at the role that some play in my life. There is a whole infrastructure that is not there to support such a change, at least for me and my needs. There is also no reason to single out single-use plastics when the problem is plastic in general. There is some moments of anti-consumption talk in the book, but it falls into the cliche of anti-technological thought in general. Yes, people do wasteful things with their smartphones, but what is the acceptable ratio of frivolity to seriousness? Is it like Blackstone's formulation where one suicide prevention is worth 10 people radicalized? And (here comes that irritating Libertarian again) can you trust giving someone the power to try and mitigate that?
So yes, if you are like me, you will be reading these words on an e-reader made of plastic, drinking a liquid from a plastic container, eating a breakfast that you cooked yourself, but that every component thereof was contained in plastic in some way and that used plastic cookware, seeing through glasses with plastic lenses in a plastic frame and think 'well, ****.' To some extent, that applies to all the book's arguments. I would like to believe that there is some way to factor in the price of cleanup to different goods, but short of rolling back other environmental legislation (hey, for a Decision '24 bonus round, that might happen!) it would take a reduction in standard of living that goes past a sort of idealized social leveling and into real harm for some people.
Still a recommend for its solid journalism with bite, but know that you're going into World Made by Hand or Parable of the Sower here.
My thanks to the author, Alexander Clapp, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Little, Brown and Company, for making the ARC available to me.
May 8, 2025
This is an excellent book which looks at 4 kinds of large-scale waste and how it is dealt with, and either returned to a form where it has industrial use, disposed of, or burnt.
Part 1 looks at toxic waste resulting from incineration of waste. Part 2 considers electronic waste from our gadgets and appliances, largely set alight in places like the slums of Ghana and the metals extracted. Part 3 looks at metal waste, such as dismantling cruise ships in Turkey. Part 4 is more familiar from other books, the plastics that people "recycle" in their household waste and that end up getting transported across the world, sorted and sold, often as fuel. In every case waste is taken out of sight of rich countries and becomes something developing nations have to deal with. Countries like China have occupied both slots: they used to receive vast quantities of waste from the West, but now they ship their own elsewhere.
Alexander Clapp seems to have been everywhere and visited many countries (from five continents) in this brilliant book. He goes to great lengths to get to the bottom of a story and hunt out the people at the end of the line. I have read several books on waste over the years, but this one stands out from the ones in recent memory; for sheer legwork, I doubt it has many equals. Most authors look at plastics, which is a shocking subject in its own right, but Clapp has brilliantly woven the four chapters together into a coherent narrative of the exploitation of the Global South by the wealthier nations, which has been going on for decades. Many, many people are dying prematurely because they are exposed to hazardous substances from our garbage; it is a disgrace that waste cannot be treated closer to its place of origin.
It makes you wonder whether the environmental movement has become so obsessed with climate change that the issue of brushing our waste under the rug gets so little attention. Washing out yoghurt pots and putting them in the "green" bin, salving our conscience, only for them to be sent to Indonesia and incinerated, is insane.
Part 1 looks at toxic waste resulting from incineration of waste. Part 2 considers electronic waste from our gadgets and appliances, largely set alight in places like the slums of Ghana and the metals extracted. Part 3 looks at metal waste, such as dismantling cruise ships in Turkey. Part 4 is more familiar from other books, the plastics that people "recycle" in their household waste and that end up getting transported across the world, sorted and sold, often as fuel. In every case waste is taken out of sight of rich countries and becomes something developing nations have to deal with. Countries like China have occupied both slots: they used to receive vast quantities of waste from the West, but now they ship their own elsewhere.
Alexander Clapp seems to have been everywhere and visited many countries (from five continents) in this brilliant book. He goes to great lengths to get to the bottom of a story and hunt out the people at the end of the line. I have read several books on waste over the years, but this one stands out from the ones in recent memory; for sheer legwork, I doubt it has many equals. Most authors look at plastics, which is a shocking subject in its own right, but Clapp has brilliantly woven the four chapters together into a coherent narrative of the exploitation of the Global South by the wealthier nations, which has been going on for decades. Many, many people are dying prematurely because they are exposed to hazardous substances from our garbage; it is a disgrace that waste cannot be treated closer to its place of origin.
It makes you wonder whether the environmental movement has become so obsessed with climate change that the issue of brushing our waste under the rug gets so little attention. Washing out yoghurt pots and putting them in the "green" bin, salving our conscience, only for them to be sent to Indonesia and incinerated, is insane.
September 14, 2025
First drawn to Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash by an excerpt of the first few chapters, I was excited to see my library already had a copy. Alexander Clapp has literally journeyed around the world to investigate where trash from the US, Canada, Europe, etc., goes (hint: both exactly where and nowhere that you would expect). In so doing, he unravels a decades-spanning story of globalization and neocolonialism that is both depressing and predictable. Waste Wars, while far from perfect in its framing and storytelling, is nonetheless packed full of important information for anyone wanting a better grounding not just in the current state of the global waste trade but how we got here.
Clapp takes a spatial rather than chronological approach to organization, and this largely serves him well. Part 1 explores the export to and dumping of toxic waste in Central America and other tropical destinations. Part 2 focuses on the reclamation of e-waste in Agbogbloshie, Ghana, and the tertiary industries that have sprung up around it. Part 3 discusses shipbreaking, especially in Türkiye. Finally, Part 4 looks at the proliferation of plastic waste and where it goes since China’s 2017 import ban. In each of these parts, Clapp breaks the issue down through several short chapters where he arrives at a destination, speaks to various locals, and provides background information and quotes from other sources.
I was slightly surprised by how short each chapter is! It’s seldom that I criticize the pacing of a nonfiction book, yet that is my major concern with Waste Wars. I personally would have preferred the chapters to be unified into longer, slightly more coherent explorations of each place, industry, etc. As it is, reading the book feels like we’re jumping back and forth among various related topics within a single place: let’s talk about reclaiming e-waste, then we’re talking about browser boys, then back to the e-waste, and around and around we go. As such, while this book is absolutely saturated with fascinating ideas, it’s sometimes hard to feel like I’m getting the full picture.
If you can get past this and Clapp’s equally frenetic prosody, then you’ll learn a lot from this book. I pride myself in already knowing a fair amount about the globalization of our waste, especially when it comes to plastic, but there is so much in here that was new to me! Probably one of the most important main ideas is simply how the export of trash from developed countries is an inversion of the colonial import of resources to those countries. In this way, Waste Wars really underscores the neocolonialism happening around the world in the last fifty years. It isn’t just that we’re continuing to exploit, say, African countries for their raw materials (though that is still happening)—we are strong-arming them into accepting raw deals for our junk, most of which is toxic and harmful to human health as well as larger ecosystems.
When I say “we” I mean our governments but also the companies and entrepreneurs who see these markets as opportunities or create them wholesale in those countries when the market is shut down at home, as was the case in China. Clapp is well aware that hanging responsibility for sustainability on an individual consumer is an unrealistic shibboleth, and he rightly attributes that responsibility to the producers of these materials. At the same time, however, he gently points out that we consumers inhabit a very unusual, very privileged moment in space and time. We don’t have to think about where our plastic goes as we blithely toss it, often unwashed and therefore contaminated, into our poorly sorted recycling. Many of us are increasingly aware that plastic is a problem, yet that problem is distant and indistinct, much as global warming was for us in the nineties. Clapp is somewhat successful in counteracting this bias, though I think the videos and pictures I’ve seen are a little more effective for how they showcase the scale of devastation that’s happening.
Waste Wars is a valuable contribution to the topic of globalized waste. It can feel overwhelming at times and make you want to crawl under a blanket and ignore the problem. As with any nonfiction book about such topics, however, I think it’s important instead to frame our reaction through the lens of “knowledge is power.” When we’re ignorant, we are definitely part of the problem. Less ignorant, we’re still part of the problem (because you can’t escape from these systems)—but we now have opportunities to find ways to leverage those who have power to change things. That can mean individual choices, yes, but it can also mean political action, organization, and rallying around related causes.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews.
Clapp takes a spatial rather than chronological approach to organization, and this largely serves him well. Part 1 explores the export to and dumping of toxic waste in Central America and other tropical destinations. Part 2 focuses on the reclamation of e-waste in Agbogbloshie, Ghana, and the tertiary industries that have sprung up around it. Part 3 discusses shipbreaking, especially in Türkiye. Finally, Part 4 looks at the proliferation of plastic waste and where it goes since China’s 2017 import ban. In each of these parts, Clapp breaks the issue down through several short chapters where he arrives at a destination, speaks to various locals, and provides background information and quotes from other sources.
I was slightly surprised by how short each chapter is! It’s seldom that I criticize the pacing of a nonfiction book, yet that is my major concern with Waste Wars. I personally would have preferred the chapters to be unified into longer, slightly more coherent explorations of each place, industry, etc. As it is, reading the book feels like we’re jumping back and forth among various related topics within a single place: let’s talk about reclaiming e-waste, then we’re talking about browser boys, then back to the e-waste, and around and around we go. As such, while this book is absolutely saturated with fascinating ideas, it’s sometimes hard to feel like I’m getting the full picture.
If you can get past this and Clapp’s equally frenetic prosody, then you’ll learn a lot from this book. I pride myself in already knowing a fair amount about the globalization of our waste, especially when it comes to plastic, but there is so much in here that was new to me! Probably one of the most important main ideas is simply how the export of trash from developed countries is an inversion of the colonial import of resources to those countries. In this way, Waste Wars really underscores the neocolonialism happening around the world in the last fifty years. It isn’t just that we’re continuing to exploit, say, African countries for their raw materials (though that is still happening)—we are strong-arming them into accepting raw deals for our junk, most of which is toxic and harmful to human health as well as larger ecosystems.
When I say “we” I mean our governments but also the companies and entrepreneurs who see these markets as opportunities or create them wholesale in those countries when the market is shut down at home, as was the case in China. Clapp is well aware that hanging responsibility for sustainability on an individual consumer is an unrealistic shibboleth, and he rightly attributes that responsibility to the producers of these materials. At the same time, however, he gently points out that we consumers inhabit a very unusual, very privileged moment in space and time. We don’t have to think about where our plastic goes as we blithely toss it, often unwashed and therefore contaminated, into our poorly sorted recycling. Many of us are increasingly aware that plastic is a problem, yet that problem is distant and indistinct, much as global warming was for us in the nineties. Clapp is somewhat successful in counteracting this bias, though I think the videos and pictures I’ve seen are a little more effective for how they showcase the scale of devastation that’s happening.
Waste Wars is a valuable contribution to the topic of globalized waste. It can feel overwhelming at times and make you want to crawl under a blanket and ignore the problem. As with any nonfiction book about such topics, however, I think it’s important instead to frame our reaction through the lens of “knowledge is power.” When we’re ignorant, we are definitely part of the problem. Less ignorant, we’re still part of the problem (because you can’t escape from these systems)—but we now have opportunities to find ways to leverage those who have power to change things. That can mean individual choices, yes, but it can also mean political action, organization, and rallying around related causes.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews.
September 21, 2025
While I gave this book a 5-star rating, it isn't because it was an entertaining read. The book is very well written and Alexander Clapp is an amazing journalist. What he uncovered during his two-year journey of following where all our garbage goes is absolutely shocking. Yet, should we really be surprised? We are all guilty when it comes to this problem, myself included. If you think you aren't, I ask you: do you own a cell phone? A computer? A TV, perhaps even more than one television? Do you use appliances that, unfortunately nowadays tend to break down within ten years? If you have, or had, children, do/did you use disposable diapers? Do you drink from and discard plastic water bottles? The list goes on. All of our disposable electronics, appliances, and cheap plastics, etc., are shipped overseas to be sold, burned, buried and so on, and the dangerous impact on our environment, and the health of the people who handle our toxic trash, is horrifying. Then there's the cruise ship dismantlers that I'd never heard of. It is such a dangerous job and the death toll from this extremely difficult and grueling task is just heart breaking. And when it comes to our trash, it isn't just the US that's shipping garbage to places like Ghana, Turkey, Java and other continents; China does, along with Germany, Great Britain, Canada, you get the picture. This is maddening. And what saddens me, is I checked this book out from my local library and I have been able to renew it three times. No one is placing any hold requests on it, unlike the fiction and mysteries I also enjoy reading. I am unable to renew them as there's a huge wait list for the new best sellers. Waste Wars should be an in demand book with a wait list too! And ironically, this book, like all the others I check out from the library, have PLASTIC protectors on the covers, something that gets thrown away when it gets beat up, torn, or whatever. How are we ever going to fix this world wide problem? No one is going to give up their cell phones, computers, and any of our other modern conveniences. My son works in IT and he said that most consumer laptops are designed to fail in five years. I miss the days when appliances, cars and electronics were built to actually last for 20+ years. Now we just throw these items away because in many cases, it's actually cheaper to buy a new replacement, or we just want the latest model. But the cost on our environment and fellow humankind is huge. And believe me, I'm not missing the irony here: I am able to post this review because I own a computer.
July 22, 2025
[ 2,5⭐️? ]
Segregujecie śmieci? Używacie naczyń jednorazowych? A może przynosicie na zakupy własne woreczki na warzywa i owoce?
Mogłabym wam zadać jeszcze więcej pytań, zainspirowanych lekturą tego reportażu, ale gdzieś na końcu każdego z nich znaleźlibyśmy się w punkcie, w którym wam oznajmiam: to nie ma znaczenia. A przynajmniej nie ma tak wielkiego znaczenia jak starano się nam wmówić.
Przyznam, że dla mnie nie było wielkim szokiem to, że recykling to w dużej mierze chwyt marketingowy; już wiele lat temu oglądałam tego typu materiały na Youtubie i chociaż autor z pewnością chciał przekazać pewien efekt 𝘸𝘰𝘸, ja to przyjęłam jako coś znanego. Podobnie rzecz się miała z wysypiskami, które zapewniają byt wielu tysiącom Afrykańczyków oraz rozkładaniem smartfonów na czynniki pierwsze w celu odzysku materiałów.
Książka jest solidnie udokumentowana, pełna danych i odniesień do źródeł, co bez wątpienia świadczy o rzetelności autora. Z drugiej strony jednak ta obfitość informacji momentami przytłacza. Po kilku stronach miałam wrażenie przesytu i trudności z utrzymaniem koncentracji. Czułam, że tonę w faktach, a brakuje mi przestrzeni na ich przetworzenie.
Najbardziej przemawiały do mnie fragmenty pisane w formie reportażowej – te, w których Clapp faktycznie „jest” w opisywanych miejscach, rozmawia z ludźmi, obserwuje. To w końcu jedna z największych zalet tej książki: autor rzeczywiście odbył podróż śladami śmieci i mógł przedstawić relacje z pierwszej ręki. Szkoda, że takich momentów było stosunkowo niewiele i że ginęły one w morzu statystyk, przypisów i historycznych dygresji.
Myślę że zabrakło mi też większego uporządkowania. Czasami poruszaliśmy się chronologicznie, by zaraz zatonąć w przeszłości jakiegoś kraju i jego polityki. Innym razem punkt, który dało się objaśnić na kilku stronach, przelewany był na stron trzydzieści.
Temat jest bezsprzecznie ważny. Ale sposób jego przedstawienia, mimo ogromu pracy włożonej w książkę, sprawił, że wielokrotnie miałam ochotę ją odłożyć i nie wracać.
Segregujecie śmieci? Używacie naczyń jednorazowych? A może przynosicie na zakupy własne woreczki na warzywa i owoce?
Mogłabym wam zadać jeszcze więcej pytań, zainspirowanych lekturą tego reportażu, ale gdzieś na końcu każdego z nich znaleźlibyśmy się w punkcie, w którym wam oznajmiam: to nie ma znaczenia. A przynajmniej nie ma tak wielkiego znaczenia jak starano się nam wmówić.
Przyznam, że dla mnie nie było wielkim szokiem to, że recykling to w dużej mierze chwyt marketingowy; już wiele lat temu oglądałam tego typu materiały na Youtubie i chociaż autor z pewnością chciał przekazać pewien efekt 𝘸𝘰𝘸, ja to przyjęłam jako coś znanego. Podobnie rzecz się miała z wysypiskami, które zapewniają byt wielu tysiącom Afrykańczyków oraz rozkładaniem smartfonów na czynniki pierwsze w celu odzysku materiałów.
Książka jest solidnie udokumentowana, pełna danych i odniesień do źródeł, co bez wątpienia świadczy o rzetelności autora. Z drugiej strony jednak ta obfitość informacji momentami przytłacza. Po kilku stronach miałam wrażenie przesytu i trudności z utrzymaniem koncentracji. Czułam, że tonę w faktach, a brakuje mi przestrzeni na ich przetworzenie.
Najbardziej przemawiały do mnie fragmenty pisane w formie reportażowej – te, w których Clapp faktycznie „jest” w opisywanych miejscach, rozmawia z ludźmi, obserwuje. To w końcu jedna z największych zalet tej książki: autor rzeczywiście odbył podróż śladami śmieci i mógł przedstawić relacje z pierwszej ręki. Szkoda, że takich momentów było stosunkowo niewiele i że ginęły one w morzu statystyk, przypisów i historycznych dygresji.
Myślę że zabrakło mi też większego uporządkowania. Czasami poruszaliśmy się chronologicznie, by zaraz zatonąć w przeszłości jakiegoś kraju i jego polityki. Innym razem punkt, który dało się objaśnić na kilku stronach, przelewany był na stron trzydzieści.
Temat jest bezsprzecznie ważny. Ale sposób jego przedstawienia, mimo ogromu pracy włożonej w książkę, sprawił, że wielokrotnie miałam ochotę ją odłożyć i nie wracać.
September 2, 2025
Αν είχες την αίσθηση πως κάτι βρώμικο παίζει με την ανακύκλωση, τότε αυτό το βιβλίο σού δίνει, μέσα από την επιτόπια έρευνα του Clapp, την επιβεβαίωση που χρειαζόσουν.
Αν είχες την αίσθηση ότι ο καπιταλισμός γεννά ανισότητες και σε ό,τι αφορά στα απορρίμματα, τότε πάλι το αυτό το βιβλίο την επιβεβαιώνει.
Ναι, το βιβλίο αυτό είναι απαραίτητο, ειδικά την εποχή που μιλάμε για "βιώσιμη ανάπτυξη" (ποιων χωρών, άραγε;) και σε κάνει να αναλογιστείς τι συμβαίνει εδώ βλέποντας τι συμβαίνει πέρα, αρκετά μακριά, από τα δικά μας σύνορα.
Αν είχες την αίσθηση ότι ο καπιταλισμός γεννά ανισότητες και σε ό,τι αφορά στα απορρίμματα, τότε πάλι το αυτό το βιβλίο την επιβεβαιώνει.
Ναι, το βιβλίο αυτό είναι απαραίτητο, ειδικά την εποχή που μιλάμε για "βιώσιμη ανάπτυξη" (ποιων χωρών, άραγε;) και σε κάνει να αναλογιστείς τι συμβαίνει εδώ βλέποντας τι συμβαίνει πέρα, αρκετά μακριά, από τα δικά μας σύνορα.
March 8, 2025
From Guatemala to Namibia, there has been a waste trade that has been enforced by the roots of colonialism, racism ,ecoterrorism and capitalism. This book takes a look at that vast history, which was projected by people who were thought to have the best interest of many at heart.
April 24, 2025
This is a book I think everyone should read.
After even just the introduction, I felt challenged to think more critically in daily decisions. I found myself standing in the aisle of a drug store disgusted by what I had learned and agonizing over which option for a role of tape was the least waste-producing.
Every chapter after spiraled deeper down the rabbit hole. I will never forget some of the things I read.
After even just the introduction, I felt challenged to think more critically in daily decisions. I found myself standing in the aisle of a drug store disgusted by what I had learned and agonizing over which option for a role of tape was the least waste-producing.
Every chapter after spiraled deeper down the rabbit hole. I will never forget some of the things I read.
April 22, 2025
An easy to read, well-researched, illuminating look at what happens to those items we dutifully recycle, and the past and current geopolitical issues that have created this literal garbage heap. I thought I was fairly environmentally aware, but I now know how little I really knew. Eye-opening on so many levels.
July 13, 2025
„Wojnę o śmieci” czyta się na własne ryzyko - później na żadną foliową torebkę, plastikową butelkę czy impulsywnie kupione ubranie nie da się już spojrzeć tak samo.
Alexander Clapp (w zapewne jednym z najważniejszych reportaży ostatnich lat) zagląda do nielegalnych wysypisk w Turcji i Indonezji, odwiedza miejsca, gdzie zachodnie śmieci przetwarza się w warunkach zagrażających zdrowiu i życiu, i pokazuje, jak wielkie korporacje, rządy i mafie wykorzystują system recyklingu jako parawan dla wyzysku i nielegalnych interesów. Lektura przerażająca, ale i otwierająca oczy, solidna porcja rzetelnego dziennikarstwa, którego oczekuję od non-fiction.
Zginiemy pod stertami śmieci, czy może jest dla nas jakaś nadzieja? Polecam przekonać się osobiście!
Alexander Clapp (w zapewne jednym z najważniejszych reportaży ostatnich lat) zagląda do nielegalnych wysypisk w Turcji i Indonezji, odwiedza miejsca, gdzie zachodnie śmieci przetwarza się w warunkach zagrażających zdrowiu i życiu, i pokazuje, jak wielkie korporacje, rządy i mafie wykorzystują system recyklingu jako parawan dla wyzysku i nielegalnych interesów. Lektura przerażająca, ale i otwierająca oczy, solidna porcja rzetelnego dziennikarstwa, którego oczekuję od non-fiction.
Zginiemy pod stertami śmieci, czy może jest dla nas jakaś nadzieja? Polecam przekonać się osobiście!
June 17, 2025
„Śmieci podróżują tysiące kilometrów, aby zostać „poddane recyklingowi” albo „przetworzone”. To pojęcia, które mają jakoby wskazywać skuteczne metody ochrony lub odnawiania zasobów, ale w realnym kontekście globalnej wymiany odpadów należy je raczej rozumieć jako niezliczone, czasem śmiercionośne sposoby, po które sięgają społeczności krajów rozwijających się, by pozyskać cokolwiek, co może mieć choćby znikomą wartość, ze śmieci, które przysyłają im kraje rozwinięte”.
Może i jestem naiwna, ale wierzę w ludzi i historie zapisane w książkach. Wierzę, że gdyby wszyscy ludzie przeczytali „Na Zachodzie bez zmian” Remarque’a, to nie byłoby wojen. Wierzę też, że gdyby ludzkość pochyliła się nad historiami, które opisał Alexander Clapp, to miałaby większą świadomość tego, że problem z naszymi odpadami nie kończy się w momencie, w którym wyrzucamy śmieci do kolorowych pojemników przeznaczonych do segregacji. Tak naprawdę wtedy dopiero zaczyna się cała ‘zabawa’, a koszt środowiskowy za nasze odpady, o którym my tak rzadko myślimy, będą płaciły jeszcze kolejne pokolenia.
To doskonała książka, choć obraz naszych nikczemnych działań skrywanych pod pozorami dobroczynności smuci, zawstydza i oburza. Bardzo chciałabym, aby jak najwięcej czytelników zapoznało się z tym reportażem, bo ma w sobie moc rażenia, która sprawia, że inaczej spoglądamy na rzeczy, które nas otaczają. To wprost niewiarygodne, jak nieograniczona konsumpcja, chęć zysku oraz eksportowanie toksycznych i niebezpiecznych odpadów do najdalszych zakątków świata nieodwracalnie rujnują naszą planetę. A my wciąż bez wyrzutów sumienia sięgamy po kolejny foliowy woreczek…
Czytajcie „Wojnę o śmieci”! To lektura obowiązkowa. #mustreadbook
Może i jestem naiwna, ale wierzę w ludzi i historie zapisane w książkach. Wierzę, że gdyby wszyscy ludzie przeczytali „Na Zachodzie bez zmian” Remarque’a, to nie byłoby wojen. Wierzę też, że gdyby ludzkość pochyliła się nad historiami, które opisał Alexander Clapp, to miałaby większą świadomość tego, że problem z naszymi odpadami nie kończy się w momencie, w którym wyrzucamy śmieci do kolorowych pojemników przeznaczonych do segregacji. Tak naprawdę wtedy dopiero zaczyna się cała ‘zabawa’, a koszt środowiskowy za nasze odpady, o którym my tak rzadko myślimy, będą płaciły jeszcze kolejne pokolenia.
To doskonała książka, choć obraz naszych nikczemnych działań skrywanych pod pozorami dobroczynności smuci, zawstydza i oburza. Bardzo chciałabym, aby jak najwięcej czytelników zapoznało się z tym reportażem, bo ma w sobie moc rażenia, która sprawia, że inaczej spoglądamy na rzeczy, które nas otaczają. To wprost niewiarygodne, jak nieograniczona konsumpcja, chęć zysku oraz eksportowanie toksycznych i niebezpiecznych odpadów do najdalszych zakątków świata nieodwracalnie rujnują naszą planetę. A my wciąż bez wyrzutów sumienia sięgamy po kolejny foliowy woreczek…
Czytajcie „Wojnę o śmieci”! To lektura obowiązkowa. #mustreadbook
March 29, 2025
A phenomenal book that clearly and methodically lays out the convoluted systems of global waste trade that results in western garbage ending up in the global south while also highlighting the social and historical inequities and laws that have led to the current state of things.
This book was a shocking exposé of a system that many of us thought they knew, or at least had some idea of. However, the truth of waste trade is much more complex and dark, leading to incalculable lives lost and shortened. The stories highlighted in this book are a sobering and striking representation of the daily devastation the world’s waste economy brings.
Waste Wars will truly make you think about the waste that our country and other western countries produce in excess, as part of our society that always needs more. More production, more money, more waste. How much plastic do each of us use on the daily? Even my copy of this book came wrapped in a plastic cover to protect it, a piece of plastic that will still exist in ten thousand years and may even make its way back into my own food or body.
This book is an indictment of our current consumer system and is a phenomenal spiritual successor to Silent Spring. Hopefully, the corruption and complex webs of waste highlighted in this book lead to widespread change away from trends of over consumption and over production that are quickly destroying the planet.
This book was a shocking exposé of a system that many of us thought they knew, or at least had some idea of. However, the truth of waste trade is much more complex and dark, leading to incalculable lives lost and shortened. The stories highlighted in this book are a sobering and striking representation of the daily devastation the world’s waste economy brings.
Waste Wars will truly make you think about the waste that our country and other western countries produce in excess, as part of our society that always needs more. More production, more money, more waste. How much plastic do each of us use on the daily? Even my copy of this book came wrapped in a plastic cover to protect it, a piece of plastic that will still exist in ten thousand years and may even make its way back into my own food or body.
This book is an indictment of our current consumer system and is a phenomenal spiritual successor to Silent Spring. Hopefully, the corruption and complex webs of waste highlighted in this book lead to widespread change away from trends of over consumption and over production that are quickly destroying the planet.
March 21, 2025
Incredibly Informative
I highly recommend this book to anyone still operating under the delusion that when you separate your trash and your recyclables, you're doing anything other than beginning a very long complicated chain of off-loading your plastic waste to some poor developing country. As Greenpeace reports every two years, this stuff is (for the most part) simply not getting recycled. The best we can do is to avoid purchasing plastic. One criticism of the book is the author's failure to address textile waste, which I was surprised was left out. Really in depth examination of the physical dangers inherent in so much of the work that goes into the process of shipbreaking, including environmental toxins.
I highly recommend this book to anyone still operating under the delusion that when you separate your trash and your recyclables, you're doing anything other than beginning a very long complicated chain of off-loading your plastic waste to some poor developing country. As Greenpeace reports every two years, this stuff is (for the most part) simply not getting recycled. The best we can do is to avoid purchasing plastic. One criticism of the book is the author's failure to address textile waste, which I was surprised was left out. Really in depth examination of the physical dangers inherent in so much of the work that goes into the process of shipbreaking, including environmental toxins.
October 1, 2024
Waste Wars by Alexander Clapp is no dumpster fire of a read. It is a compelling look at the trash we’re generating and its impact on the environment and developing nations. Spoiler Alert: it’s not good news. The book is written through the eyes of a journalist so it feels well-researched without being ponderous. It is something of a call to action as well. Thank you to #netgalley and #littlebrownandcompany for the chance to preview this book.
April 19, 2025
Funny seeing people rate this 1 or 2 stars — what the fuck did you want out of this? Goodreads is idiotic. And here I am on it. Great book taking a political angle to the mind-bending modern trash trade. Trash is scary. In fact, it is ruining us. But more precisely it is the west’s trash ruining the rest of the world — South America, Africa, Turkey, Southeast Asia — but also…it is ruining us all. Clapp’s storytelling and research is impeccable.
March 5, 2025
This book sounded right up my alley, and I was so excited to read it. I was very disappointed because up until about a third of way through, and I just struggled. I did not find it interesting at all. I feel that there has been better books put out about trash, but this is not one of them.
March 20, 2025
very eye opening. never would’ve thought about it. now I’m seriously trying seriously trying to limit my own waste
Read it and mourn for our planet, like Silent Spring, it made my really hope we can change what we do to mother earth
Read it and mourn for our planet, like Silent Spring, it made my really hope we can change what we do to mother earth
March 23, 2025
Great and depressing read. While the book looks at waste holistically, much of the book focuses on the use and disposal of plastic, its economic, environmental and political impacts. The progrnosis is not good. And most of the attempts to fix it are either imperial send-it-elsewhere or band-aids.
August 1, 2025
Absolute 5 stars. Well-organized, beautifully written, and a monumental feat of investigative journalism.
The book is split into four parts covering four types of waste: hazardous waste, e-waste, scrap metal, and plastic. The times, places, and people are unique in each part, but the theme of the globalized waste trade over the past 50 years is the same: “a chameleon attempt to convince the poorer countries of the world that the things you throw away—and which are often made of materials that have been appropriated from their lands—are invaluable economic opportunities they should pay for.“
Some other quotes and passages I highlighted (there were many more):
- The impact of sending millions upon millions of pounds of foreign synthetics—new and used—into lands with no history of or capacity for handling them is a story we might only fully come to understand decades from now. But already it’s no exaggeration to say that across much of the equator today, waste—gathering it, sorting it, burning it—has come to replace thousands of years of farming as the default occupation of humanity.
- These parallel aftermaths of the oil crisis—recycling petrocapital into banking systems and then issuing it to developing countries as “loans”; recycling aluminum cans and newspapers and then exporting them to developing countries as “raw materials”—amounted to variations of the same thing: “repackaging risk and profiting from its repurposing in the developing world.”
- Structural adjustment tended to require developing countries to level barriers to international trade. In return for debt relief, what often followed was a deluge of cheap foreign products, undercutting local industry and steamrolling the capacities of existing—or scarcely existent—systems of waste management, whose budgets were simultaneously slashed to the bone. The very economic forces that put so much plastic in the Global South in the first place would also restrict its ability to manage it properly.
- The rampant invocation of recycling—pushed in marketing campaigns and school curricula and community boards across the 1990s—amounted to, yes, a deliberate deception foisted on residents of rich countries, who were led to believe that being a prodigious consumer was compatible with being a planetary steward.
- Products designed to take seconds to consume became the objects of months-long journeys from one side of the world to the other. To attempt to cycle tiny pieces of carbon back into production streams, megatons of carbon would be unleashed shipping them from one continent to another.
- Any lasting solution to the waste crisis must start at the point where such a systematic problem begins: requiring waste’s perpetuators- tech companies, cruise ship operators, petrochemical conglomerates- to become financially liable for the fate of that which they insist on overproducing.
- As long as plastic keeps getting physically diverted by those who consume it the most, the farther from public concern- and political action- it is likely to remain.
The book is split into four parts covering four types of waste: hazardous waste, e-waste, scrap metal, and plastic. The times, places, and people are unique in each part, but the theme of the globalized waste trade over the past 50 years is the same: “a chameleon attempt to convince the poorer countries of the world that the things you throw away—and which are often made of materials that have been appropriated from their lands—are invaluable economic opportunities they should pay for.“
Some other quotes and passages I highlighted (there were many more):
- The impact of sending millions upon millions of pounds of foreign synthetics—new and used—into lands with no history of or capacity for handling them is a story we might only fully come to understand decades from now. But already it’s no exaggeration to say that across much of the equator today, waste—gathering it, sorting it, burning it—has come to replace thousands of years of farming as the default occupation of humanity.
- These parallel aftermaths of the oil crisis—recycling petrocapital into banking systems and then issuing it to developing countries as “loans”; recycling aluminum cans and newspapers and then exporting them to developing countries as “raw materials”—amounted to variations of the same thing: “repackaging risk and profiting from its repurposing in the developing world.”
- Structural adjustment tended to require developing countries to level barriers to international trade. In return for debt relief, what often followed was a deluge of cheap foreign products, undercutting local industry and steamrolling the capacities of existing—or scarcely existent—systems of waste management, whose budgets were simultaneously slashed to the bone. The very economic forces that put so much plastic in the Global South in the first place would also restrict its ability to manage it properly.
- The rampant invocation of recycling—pushed in marketing campaigns and school curricula and community boards across the 1990s—amounted to, yes, a deliberate deception foisted on residents of rich countries, who were led to believe that being a prodigious consumer was compatible with being a planetary steward.
- Products designed to take seconds to consume became the objects of months-long journeys from one side of the world to the other. To attempt to cycle tiny pieces of carbon back into production streams, megatons of carbon would be unleashed shipping them from one continent to another.
- Any lasting solution to the waste crisis must start at the point where such a systematic problem begins: requiring waste’s perpetuators- tech companies, cruise ship operators, petrochemical conglomerates- to become financially liable for the fate of that which they insist on overproducing.
- As long as plastic keeps getting physically diverted by those who consume it the most, the farther from public concern- and political action- it is likely to remain.
April 22, 2025
Makes some interesting points about what waste trading is and how it came to be within the first 1/3 of the book. For instance, how the oil crisis led to a self-reinforcing triangle of economic damnation for African countries.
The rest is weak. It follows anecdote after anecdote while failing to create a succinct narrative over what’s causing these things and what to do about them at a macro scale (another commenter said there is no call to action which I think is very accurate). Additionally, it does not provide both sides to an issue for the reader to analyze, it has a clear position without considering the other. Since it focuses so much on minute story telling details without creating a clear argument, it feels written similar a clickbait article.
The rest is weak. It follows anecdote after anecdote while failing to create a succinct narrative over what’s causing these things and what to do about them at a macro scale (another commenter said there is no call to action which I think is very accurate). Additionally, it does not provide both sides to an issue for the reader to analyze, it has a clear position without considering the other. Since it focuses so much on minute story telling details without creating a clear argument, it feels written similar a clickbait article.
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