Make Garbage Great: The Terracycle Family Guide to a Zero-Waste Lifestyle

by Tom Szaky, Albe Zakes

In this fun, pop culture exploration, two ecological entrepreneurs examine the materials we use in our daily lives, show how they impact the environment, and provide project ideas—from recycling to upcycling and more—to lessen our impact and protect our world. Jam-packed with information, more than 200 photographs and illustrations, and approximately twenty DIY projects, this engaging, graphic volume shows us how we all can cut down, reuse, and repurpose the garbage we produce. With its easy hands-on design,  Make Garbage Great  contains information, little known facts, compelling graphics, and colorful illustrations and photos on a variety of common household waste-stream Plastics, Glass and Ceramics, Paper, Wood, Textiles, Metal, Rubber, and Organics. Tom Szaky, the founder of the award-winning nonprofit, environmental company TerraCycle, introduces each and explains what he’s learned about it in his personal life and with TerraCycle. He and Albe Zakes then provide a graphic historical timeline of each material's use in commercial goods—from how it’s manufactured to what happens when it’s throw out—an analysis of its impact on the environment now and tomorrow; suggestions for DIY projects to save it from the trash bin, and lists of helpful resources. They also include sidebars and definitions, fun and quirky facts, lists of reuse ideas, quotes, and illuminating interviews that add depth and insight. All of us have a responsibility to protect our environment. Informative and inspirational,  Make Garbage Great shows us how to be creative custodians today—and for the rest of our lives.

Genres: Nonfiction, Environment

224 pages, Hardcover

First published July 7, 2015

About the author

Tom Szaky is the CEO and founder of TerraCycle, a company that makes consumer products from waste.

Szaky's parents are medical doctors, and Szaky himself is an only child. At age four, Szaky left his home in Hungary after the Chernobyl disaster. In 1987, Szaky immigrated to Canada, where he grew up in Toronto. Szaky attended high school at Upper Canada College. He attended college at Princeton University, majoring in psychology and economics. He dropped out during his sophomore year to focus on TerraCycle.

Early on in his career, Tom started three small 'dot.com' companies. These were Werehome.com, piority.com, and studentmarks.com. In 2006, Tom was named the "#1 CEO under thirty" by Inc. magazine in its July 2006 issue for his work in TerraCycle.

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of good information in this book. I read it because I am trying to cut down on the amount of waste I personally put into the world. I'm not so into the "make a bird feeder from a plastic bottle" aspect of the book because it reminds me of the many, many abandoned recycled crafts of my childhood. I found this a useful read for getting a handle on the issues with so many of the non-renewable materials on the market today.

[Tracey]

Kindle Daily Deal mention - sounded interesting

[Yoo-Yoo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains an easy-to-understand history of human use of a variety of materials, how advances in technology in each area pushed humanity from our hunter-gatherer days to where we are now. The main content of the chapters is insightful, concise, and explains our current world of one-time-use, synthetic, non-biodegradable everything. For that, I would have liked to give this book five stars. I learned a ton about the production of paper, rubber, plastic, and agriculture. I was inspired by tech from the past to think about more sustainable solutions for the future.

However! Every chapter in this book also contains a DIY project for reusing waste. And all of these DIY projects are just ...trinkets, relatively useless items to accumulate at home and only use a few times. Bags, that we all have too many of. Unwieldy wine cork that can only be used a few times. These are not useful, long-life items. Also, when it comes time to dispose of them -- most of the projects take items that were compostable/recyclable, glue them to other things, and produce items that are no longer compostable or recyclable -- so it's a net negative! For example: pouring hot wax into an orange peel to make a candle - why? With the wax, you can't compost the orange peel anymore, the candle can only be used once, *and* there's a fire hazard if you let the candle burn all the way down to the peel. The net sum of these DIY projects is more harm than good.

Also, for the last chapter, someone got the word "organics" (aka compostable food waste) confused with the word "organic" (aka items produced without pesticides/herbicides). The factoids are all pushing for organic food, which ... seems out of place when the main content talks about how 40% of food in the US is thrown out, and millions of people in the world are going hungry. Some editor dropped the ball on making this chapter cohesive.

[Plum · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was good in some ways and bad in some ways.
I picked it up because I wanted to get some real ideas for upcycling... you know... without making everything into a tote bag or a plant holder. It wasn't that - tote bags - 2 - check, plant holder, check.
What it was, was a source of information about all the consumable products that we use and that end up in the garbage at the end of a short or a longer life as a product. It was good at that... until I had to narrow my eyes about how if we ate organic food it would decrease instances of autism. Really? Are we still on that old bandwagon? *sigh*

[Christine Kenney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Based on the title, I was worried this would have political overtones. It turned out to be a general survey of how materials (glass, plastic, rubber, wood, etc.) are harvested and turned into commercial goods. It seems to be geared more towards the grade schooler with some adult supervision-- lots of pictures, not all of them topically relevant; lots of diy craft projects, but very few seemed to be utilitarian things you would craft repeatedly (wallets, coin purses, bird feeders, etc.)

[Ria Zen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The history of various innovation was interesting, but the formatting made it less enjoyable to read. Great for as a coffee table type of book, where you want to flip through and read a small section at a time... not so great when you have to flip through multiple pages to finish a sentence. 2.5/5. The bias was quite prominent and plenty self-promo in the book, though it is true people could benefit from being more informed about the products they buy and discard.

[Katrina Clohessy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensive overview of the waste stream and how to divert trash from it through extensive recycling. Also explains the history of certain materials and whether they're eco-friendly in the long run.

[T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great info. Bad design. Paragraphs were interrupted for pages for the craft or timeline. Lots of inserts in odd places and a few photos had questionable captions (like 2). It is a very informative book if you get past the graphic design layout that went for cool spreads over naturally flowing text.

[Tibocut · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too small, can't read

Maybe a great book if you read it on an iMac 5K screen.
Otherwise it's too small on an iPad or any Kindle.

No possibility to zoom in and out.

Bad ebook. Possibility a great content.

[Haylee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself." --W.B.

p. 99 "Four things you didn't know paper could be made of"

"The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this." --M.T.

"Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads." --H.D.T.

[Suzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book but it certainly doesn't live up to it's claim of being a "family guide to a zero-waste lifestyle". (Bea Johnson's "Zero Waste Home" is a fantastic guide.)

It's mostly information about how different materials are produced/grown and had lots of interesting ideas. It would probably make a great beginners guide and one that children would enjoy.

There are a handful of DIY projects throughout but most are made with trash that can't be recycled, so I'm not sure if you are supposed to just buy those things for the project and then stop buying them? And other projects require additional purchases and are honestly not very useful at all...

That said I did love the bookbinding idea. They don't use recycled paper (other than using an old record album cover for the cover) but I think that would be a great idea for a more faithful "zero-waste" project.

[Mmfniteowl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though I feel as if I know a lot about "garbage" and its effect on the earth, this again reminded me of the necessity of everyone to make Minimal waste. I recycle and compost but the book made me more aware of the need for curtailing my waste. Rags over paper towels, reusable containers over plastic wrap, foil and zip lock bags.
What I did not like were the projects. Maybe you are the kind that likes oranges cut in half and used for candle holders, and some people can carry that off. But that is not my style nor were most of the projects. They are what I call "tacky"

[Marcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a terrific book--especially for teachers, parents who want to educate the next generation about the problem of garbage. There are tons of terrific upcycling instructions for various projects, timelines about each waste stream--organic, plastic, glass, paper, metal, wood, textiles--and a fairly global history of these resources humans use. Lots of wonderful factoids and photographs and an interesting read!

[Daniel]

I first learned of TerraCycle by reading the book All You Need Is Less: The Eco-friendly Guide to Guilt-Free Green Living and Stress-Free Simplicity.

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

nonfiction; info about garbage and recycling with a few salvage projects (more info than projects)

[Larissa Distler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book with practical advice and projects to reduce waste.