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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jul 2005, 320 pages
Paperback:
Aug 2006, 336 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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From the book jacket:
Into our trash cans go dead batteries, dirty
diapers, bygone burritos, broken toys,
tattered socks, eight-track cassettes,
scratched CDs, banana peels … But where do
these things go next? In a country that
consumes and then casts off more and more,
what actually happens to the things we throw
away?
Comment: New York's approximate 320 square miles contains 59 sanitation districts,
employing 7,600 workers, working 6 days a week; one district is South Brooklyn
which is divided into
eleven garages. The particular garage that Royte visits in the opening chapter
of Garbage Land is broken up into five sections, each in turn served by three
trucks. In one morning, one truck collects about 20,000 lbs of garbage in
less than 4 hours. Multiply this one truck by the number of routes, then
by the number of garages, then by the number of districts in New York, then
extrapolate this number out to encompass the rest of the USA (let alone the rest
of the developed world) - and that's an awful lot of garbage.
Despite this, according to Royte, only 2% of waste is municipal waste (i.e. the
sort the garbage trucks collect from homes, schools and businesses). The
remainder, about 12 billion tons a year, is from industry, mining, agricultural
etc.
In a style reminiscent of Fast Food Nation, Royte investigates what
happens to our garbage, balancing conversational reporting with technical
details, covering both the economic and ecological perspectives of garbage.
'Starred Review. What her staggering expose
tells us is that as the quantity, variety,
and toxicity of our garbage increases, we
must, like nature, evolve ways to reclaim
and reuse everything we make.' - Booklist.
This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in August 2005, and has been updated for the
September 2006 edition.
Click here to go to this issue.
More books by Elizabeth Royte
If you liked Garbage Land, try these:
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With erudite prose and carefully chosen illustrations, this unique work of metatourism explores what cities are and how they work. It covers history, customs and language, districts, transport, money, work, shops and markets, and tourist sites, creating a fantastically detailed portrait of the city through history and into the future.
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