Garbology

Author: Edward Humes
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1583335234
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist takes readers on a surprising tour of America’s biggest export, our most prodigious product, and our greatest legacy: our trash The average American produces 102 tons of garbage across a lifetime and $50 billion in squandered riches are rolled to the curb each year. But our bins are just the starting point for a strange, impressive, mysterious, and costly journey that may also represent the greatest untapped opportunity of the century. In Garbology, Edward Humes investigates trash—what’s in it; how much we pay for it; how we manage to create so much of it; and how some families, communities, and even nations are finding a way back from waste to discover a new kind of prosperity. Along the way , he introduces a collection of garbage denizens unlike anyone you’ve ever met: the trash-tracking detectives of MIT, the bulldozer-driving sanitation workers building Los Angeles’ Garbage Mountain landfill, the artists residing in San Francisco’s dump, and the family whose annual trash output fills not a dumpster or a trash can, but a single mason jar. Garbology reveals not just what we throw away, but who we are and where our society is headed. Waste is the one environmental and economic harm that ordinary working Americans have the power to change—and prosper in the process. Garbology is raising awareness of trash consumption and is sparking community-wide action through One City One Book programs around the country. It is becoming an increasingly popular addition to high school and college syllabi and is being adopted by many colleges and universities for First Year Experience programs.

Rubbish!

Author: William L. Rathje
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816521432
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
It is from the discards of former civilizations that archaeologists have reconstructed most of what we know about the past, and it is through their examination of today's garbage that William Rathje and Cullen Murphy inform us of our present. Rubbish! is their witty and erudite investigation into all aspects of the phenomenon of garbage. Rathje and Murphy show what the study of garbage tells us about a population's demographics and buying habits. Along the way, they dispel the common myths about our "garbage crisis"—about fast-food packaging and disposable diapers, about biodegradable garbage and the acceleration of the average family's garbage output. They also suggest methods for dealing with the garbage we do have.

One Kid's Trash

Author: Jamie Sumner
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1534457038
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
When his father moves them halfway across Colorado, eleven-year-old Hugo O'Donnell is surprised that his remarkable talent for garbology makes him popular for the first time in his life.

My Life in Garbology

Author: A. J. Weberman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780883730966
Category : Refuse collectors
Languages : en
Pages : 159

Book Description

Waste and Want

Author: Susan Strasser
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0805065121
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367

Book Description
Originally published: New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999.

Gone Tomorrow

Author: Heather Rogers
Publisher: New Press, The
ISBN: 1595585729
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
“A galvanizing exposé” of America’s trash problem from plastic in the ocean to “wasteful packaging, bogus recycling, and flawed landfills and incinerators” (Booklist, starred review). Eat a take-out meal, buy a pair of shoes, or read a newspaper, and you’re soon faced with a bewildering amount of garbage. The United States is the planet’s number-one producer of trash. Each American throws out 4.5 pounds daily. But garbage is also a global problem. Today, the Pacific Ocean contains six times more plastic waste than zooplankton. How did we end up with this much rubbish, and where does it all go? Journalist and filmmaker Heather Rogers answers these questions by taking readers on a grisly and fascinating tour through the underworld of garbage. Gone Tomorrow excavates the history of rubbish handling from the nineteenth century to the present, pinpointing the roots of today’s waste-addicted society. With a “lively authorial voice,” Rogers draws connections between modern industrial production, consumer culture, and our throwaway lifestyle (New York Press). She also investigates the politics of recycling and the export of trash to poor countries, while offering a potent argument for change. “A clear-thinking and peppery writer, Rogers presents a galvanizing exposé of how we became the planet’s trash monsters. . . . [Gone Tomorrow] details everything that is wrong with today’s wasteful packaging, bogus recycling, and flawed landfills and incinerators. . . . Rogers exhibits black-belt precision.” —Booklist, starred review

Zero Waste Home

Author: Bea Johnson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451697686
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Book Description
A practical guide for reducing waste in the home offers tools and tips for going "zero waste," discussing how to make cosmetics and cleaning supplies, pack lunches without plastic, and weed out unnecessary appliances. Shows how the author transformed her family's life for the better by reducing their waste to an astonishing 1 liter per year; part practical guide that gives readers tools & tips to diminish their footprint & simplify their lives. -- Publishers Description.

On Garbage

Author: John Scanlan
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 9781861892225
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
On Garbage is the first book to examine the detritus of Western culture in full range—not only material waste and ruin, but also residual or "broken" knowledge and the lingering remainders of cultural thought systems.

Mississippi Mud

Author: Edward Humes
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0671535056
Category : Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 460

Book Description
Documents governmental and political corruption in the Deep South through the story of a daughter who seeks justice when her parents are slain in Mississippi.

Burned

Author: Edward Humes
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1524742139
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
Was a monstrous killer brought to justice or an innocent mother condemned? On an April night in 1989, Jo Ann Parks survived a house fire that claimed the lives of her three small children. Though the fire at first seemed a tragic accident, investigators soon reported finding evidence proving that Parks had sabotaged wiring, set several fires herself, and even barricade her four-year-old son inside a closet to prevent his escape. Though she insisted she did nothing wrong, Jo Ann Parks received a life sentence without parole based on the power of forensic fire science that convincingly proved her guilt. But more than a quarter century later, a revolution in the science of fire has exposed many of the incontrovertible truths of 1989 as guesswork in disguise. The California Innocence Project is challenging Parks's conviction and the so-called science behind it, claiming that false assumptions and outright bias convicted an innocent mother of a crime that never actually happened. If Parks is exonerated, she could well be the "Patient Zero" in an epidemic of overturned guilty verdicts—but only if she wins. Can prosecutors dredge up enough evidence and roadblocks to make sure Jo Ann Parks dies in prison? No matter how her last-ditch effort for freedom turns out, the scenes of betrayal, ruin, and hope will leave readers longing for justice we can trust.