TOTAL GARBAGE

Compelling stories of people working successfully to rein in America’s wasteful habits.

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Humes, author of Garbology, documents various initiatives to reduce, recycle, and reengineer harmful products, from food containers to gas-fired building furnaces. “We have unwittingly become,” he asserts, “the most wasteful civilization in history,” with the average American responsible for 1.5 tons of garbage each year. Waste occurs when we produce inefficiently and send the excess of what we have purchased to landfills. Humes is particularly concerned with the plastic waste—“400 million tons per year”—attendant to food packaging, disposable bottles, and the synthetics woven into our clothing. He considers “fashion waste,” food waste, and the energy waste generated by the internal combustion engine. For each type of waste, the author notes the work of activists who have developed innovative ways to combat our profligacy—e.g., Jamiah Hargins, who started Crop Swap LA to replace resource-intensive and chemical-laden grass lawns with micro-farms; environmental engineer Jenna Jambeck, who made plastic food packaging a public policy issue; and Amory Lovins, who launched a revolution in energy-saving passive house design. Humes highlights the work of universities that have committed to sustainability and Peachtree City, Georgia, where electric carts are a dominant form of transportation. He discusses how energy-reduction technologies—such as induction cooktops, heat pumps, electric vehicles, and LED lighting—can help readers live less wasteful lives and stop damaging the environment. Humes believes strongly in healthy living, sustainable transportation, and a circular economy that recycles what it produces. His enthusiastic advocacy, attention to personal choices, and supportive data that seem beyond dispute make this a convincing argument and an informative book.

An engrossing, practical guide to living healthier, less improvident lives and benefiting the planet by doing so.