Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash

Elizabeth Royte

ISBN 10: 0316738263 / ISBN 13: 9780316738262

Published by Little Brown and Company, 2005

About this Item

Out of sight, out of mind . 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? In Garbage Land, acclaimed science writer Elizabeth Royte leads us on the wild adventure that begins once our trash hits the bottom of the can. Along the way, we meet an odor chemist who explains why trash smells so bad; garbage fairies and recycling gurus; neighbors of massive waste dumps; CEOs making fortunes by encouraging waste or encouraging recycling-often both at the same time; scientists trying to revive our most polluted places; fertilizer fanatics and adventurers who kayak amid sewage; paper people, steel people, aluminum people, plastic people, and even a guy who swears by recycling human waste. With a wink and a nod and a tightly clasped nose, Royte takes us on a bizarre cultural tour through slime, stench, and heat-in other words, through the back end of our ever-more supersized lifestyles. By showing us what happens to the things we've disposed of, Royte reminds us that our decisions about consumption and waste have a very real impact-and that unless we undertake radical change, the garbage we create will always be with us: in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we consume. Radiantly written and boldly reported, Garbage Land is a brilliant exploration into the soiled heart of the American trash can.

Seller Inventory # CIN0316738263G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0316738263
• ISBN 13: 9780316738262
• Binding: Hardback
• Edition: 2nd Edition
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

DESCRIPTION: Like the bestselling Fast Food Nation, GARBAGE LAND lifts the lid off a world we take for granted, revealing its complicated, surprising underbelly. In this highly unconventional travel book, Elizabeth Royte leads the reader on a cultural tour guided and informed by the things she throws away. Structured around four separate journeys--those of Royte s household trash, compostable matter, recyclables, and sewage--GARBAGE LAND is a literary investigation of the truly dirty side of consumption. Royte melds science, anthropology, and a strong dose of clear-headed analysis in her appraisal of America s relationship with its garbage, examining the uncomfortable subject of waste in much the same way Mary Roach s Stiff tackled corpses. By showing us what really happens to the things we ve "disposed of," Royte reminds us that our decisions about consumption and waste have a very real impact--and that, like it or not, the garbage we create will always be with us.

About the Author

AUTHORBIO: Elizabeth Royte has written for the New York Times Magazine, Harper s, National Geographic, Outside, Smithsonian, and The New Yorker. She was the recipient of an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship in 1999. She lives in Brooklyn.