Garbage Land: on the Secret Trail of Trash: A Review

A few weeks ago, I finished up the book Garbage Land: on the Secret Trail of Trash by Elizabeth Royte. The title of this book doesn't quite entice me, but when I came across a synopsis of it, it seemed like it would be a perfect fit for the environmental science class I am teaching this term. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it. I found it very informative, entertaining, and easy to read. And, it DOES fit perfectly with my class this term and I am having all of my students read it.
Americans produce huge amounts of trash. Yes, some is recycled, but the amount of trash that gets sent to landfills, or incinerated, each day is astounding. And, once we throw it "away", our trash often continues to cause problems for years to come by polluting the land and water.
In Garbage Land, the author follows the fate of her trash from her home in NYC and tries to figure out where it all ends up. This takes us on some crazy adventures form landfills to recycling centers, a wastewater treatment facility, a composting facility, and a whole host of others. Royte is smart and witty, and pokes fun at many of the folks she encounters, which only makes her tale more enjoyable.
Royte has us join her as she sorts through her trash before putting it on the curb. She separates the trash into categories, weighs each category, and deeply contemplates each portion of her trash and where it it originates from. She spends time doing her neighborhood route with the garbage collectors, getting a hands-on feel for the amount and type of trash to be found in NYC. She then tries to track down the landfill where her trash ends up. In the end, she is unsuccessful, but along the way she discusses landfills and some of their common problems, like landfill siting and leachate (basically trash-juice) contamination of groundwater.  As she tries to see the landfills first hand, she starts to discover the politics and secretiveness behind the trash business.
Rote also looks at ways that our "trash" can avoid the dump. She researches composting facilities and even tries her hand at composting her own food waste. She tours a recycling facility and touches on many of the common problems with recycling and why it is not as efficient as it could be.  She writes about hazardous waste and the ways that we deal (or don't deal) with it. She has a whole chapter devoted to plastics and how terrible they are for the planet, including some reasons why plastics aren't as recyclable as most folks think.
Royte doesn't stop at her trash can waste either... she decides to follow the path of her toilet waste. She visits the waste water treatment facility and sees how they separate the solids out, treat them, and then sell them as a fertilizer. This practice is commonly done across the country (including here where I live). These biosolids do have lots of nutrients, but they also often contain heavy metals and other toxic substances.
She ends the book discussing ways that we can reduce our trash, and subsequently, our impact on the Earth. She talks about reducing our consumption, ending junk mail delivery, avoiding packaging, and eventually aiming for zero waste communities.
The sad part is that yes, we are guilty of consuming too much, but so much of this lies in the hands of product manufacturers...most products these days are not built to last. In fact, the designers include "planned obsolescence" into the design....they figure out how quickly they can make something break so that you still trust them enough to buy a new one. In other words, our "stuff" is only meant to last a few years (and that is how these corporations keep making so much money!). Companies should have to take back their "stuff" after it breaks and figure out how to recycle it. One of the most important things I have really learned lately is that we vote with our dollars. When you can, give your money to folks who are making products with care and making them to last years or generations, not big corporations who are making stuff that is destined for the dump.
I would definitely recommended this book. It is such an interesting and thought-provoking journey about what we "get rid of" and where it actually goes. Pin It Now!