My thanks to both NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for an advance copy of this book that looks at the the dystopian world that is the business of garbage and waste, where it goes, the price it costs, the price it takes and how few seem willing to deal with a problem that takes makes the words garbage society seem fitting.

Men stand in despoiled lands, melting electrical power cords to get at the copper inside, while the sound of damaged appliances fills the air, hammered to get at the circuit boards inside. Groups standing in a circle, breaking old Iphones down, placing cameras, chips, and memory cards in individual bottles. Driving through the jungles of South America looking for barrels of toxic waste, that many believe are there, but few remember where. A factory in Turkey loaded with nuclear waste that no one knows who it got there, or even where it was from. People breaking up cruise ships with Princess or Inspiration in their names, dealing with gas and occasional explosions, while asbestos fumes fill the air from burn pits. Rich men in clean offices discussing the money that is being made, while families bury family members, who lost their lives dealing with the mass consumerism of the West. These sound like the dreams of the future that speculative writers like Philip K. Dick filled his novels, with, but these horrors are real. Countries that Americans couldn't find, even if we were at war with them, are filled with people earning cents a day, breaking down our garbage, to make more garbage to be broken down again and again. An unending cycle. One that shows no sign of ending, until we end. Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash by journalist Alexander Clapp is a look at what most people don't think about, nor really know why they should care. What happens to all that stuff that one throws out, and what is it doing to us.

The book begins with discussions about trash. A cargo ship leaving Philadelphia traveling the oceans looking for a place to dump trash that other American states didn't want. A trek that covered most of the globe, until it suddenly disappeared, probably into the ocean. Clapp discusses how it is cheaper to sell garbage to certain nations, rather than deal with it ourselves. Clapp also talks about how many countries are willing to despoil their own lands, to make money. For garbage is currency. Clapp interviews people who have made money selling broken PVC pipes to China, people who own companies breaking up ships, and leaving environmental messes, one who used to sell used cars, but was drawn in shipbreaking for the money. Clapp travels to countries where discarded computers, cell phones and TV's are broken down to its component parts and resold to companies making new models for planned obsolescence.

One of the more disturbing books I have read. I knew about shipbreakers, but not the cost in lives, though I shouldn't be surprised. I didn't know about the breaking down of phones, nor that phone scammers use our old technology to set up scams to make money. Drawing on photos from old hard drives or memory cards, these scammers fleece people with real photos, real ID's all thrown away. It's hard to feel bad for their victims. Clapp is a very good writer, showing the human cost, interviewing families who have lost people to accidents, and why these accidents can happen. Clapp points fingers, and assigns blame, with lots of evidence, and some pretty horrifying stories.

This is a book that should make people mad, but the madness is that nothing will change. I don't see how. The money for some is too good, the culture of always having the new and shiny is too strong, and frankly I think people don't really care anymore about anything outside of their own comfort. I really liked this book, hated the fact it was happening, and plan to recommend to others, and hope that something might come of it. My thanks to Alexander Clapp for his hard work, and excellent book.

Anti-Western Ideology And Dearth Of Bibliography Mar Otherwise Solid Enough Examination Of The Topic. This is one of those books that has a lot of great information... and then doesn't really document where that information came from. Clearly, Clapp traveled extensively and did a lot of first hand observations - which is clear from the narrative. And yet there is also quite a bit of discussion of histories old enough (yet still modern enough) that Clapp could not possibly have conducted such interviews himself, such as one comment from a letter from an activist in 1992 Guatemala regarding the trade in trash being more lucrative at the time than the drug trade! Thus, there is enough that wasn't directly observed that the bibliography should have been longer than the 13% the Advance Review Copy form of this book I read a few months before publication had. Still, that was only call it a half star deduction, as 13% is really close to the 15% that I'm trying to relax my standard to (from 20-30%).

The other half star deduction is from the explicit and pervasive anti-Western commentary - at one point going so far as to claim that "Indigenous societies were in greater touch with Earth's natural rhythms than white settlers. They had a more profound sense of moral purpose." While this statement was perhaps the single worst in the narrative, there were numerous similar comments spread throughout the entirety of the text, enough that some may wish to defenestrate this book early and often.

But don't. Read the book. There really is quite a bit here, and while some of it is included in other works on the trash trade and trash life cycle - such as Year Of No Garbage by Eve Schaub, Worn Out by Alyssa Hardy, and Wasteland by Oliver Franklin-Wallis - Clapp manages to go to other areas (such as Indonesia) not covered in these other works and show their own problems and opportunities in stark clarity. Indeed, remove the blatant anti-Western bias, and this is truly a solid work in the field, showing a wide breadth of the overall problem of the life of trash after it is thrown away and now nothing ever really solves this particular problem... in part due to the classic peril of there being too much money to be made by *not* solving it.

So read this book. Maybe you agree with the author's biases, maybe you're vehemently opposed to them. Either way, I'm almost 100% certain that even if you happen to be an actual expert in the global trash trade... you're *still* going to learn something from having read this book.

Recommended.

I've heard bits and pieces about where our trash ends up, but I've need read a journalist's account of tracking down the major items like this. The first chapter was so depressing I had to put it down and read another book first. Then I picked this one back up and it took off from there. This is an outstanding account of the author's travels around the world tracking our electronic, plastic, hazardous, and general waste. I live in the country and I know my waste all goes to the local landfill, but that is not the case for much of the country. That scene you saw in Bladerunner 2049 where the orphans break down old electronics for their precious components? That wasn't made up. Those containers and bags you so helpfully placed in the recyle bin? Think again.

It's an engaging read, too. The author brings his travels to life while educating us on the the consequences of our actions. He also does a good job explaining how we got into this mess. What he doesn't do is offer a solution, and that's the only criticism I have.

Waste Wars is about how garbage becomes nothing. Spoilers: it doesn't. Instead, the reader is introduced to different global sites that have become the receptacles of the world's garbage. Some are illicit, cases of literal toxic waste sites discovered without a clear chain of custody. Most are permitted, representing a trade in refuse with the flow going from wealthier nations to poorer ones, usually in ways that represent a sort of de facto colonialism. Many are praised: the book is about why that is wrong.

The major stops are Guatemala, Ghana, Turkey, and Indonesia. The industries here (possibly excluding the first) amount to greenwashing. The premise is that this trash is going to locations that can reclaim value from it in an environmentally sound manner where benefit inures as much to the nations getting the trash, in terms of a forward-thinking industry that skips over that dirty period of growth. Meanwhile the nations that get rid of the junk that is not economically viable for them to process. The catch-22 there being that the reason they are not economically viable is due to their own environmental regulations, whereas the other nations have no such protections.

It is not colonialism, but if you hum a few bars it will play along, specifically in the way that it reduplicates the resource extraction mode of colonialism, with one nation extracting material wealth from another, building infrastructure alleged to benefit the other nation (but that really only helps with the wealth extraction), but in a Bizzaroland format where it is the export of material detriment and the negative environmental externalities. And not even that sometimes, in that the primary market for what of value can be extracted from the trash is the exporters, in their constant need for more raw material to turn into junk after a brief phase of use.

The book is at its best when the text takes on a Wolfeian flair. The author visits these sites and asks questions, including some cool but admittedly unproductive shoeleather investigation and with plenty of focus on the affected parties. The Ghana section is the best in that the author view expands to cover the complexity of the multi-party business with a multi-layered geography. I had a passing knowledge of some of the areas here, specifically shipbreaking, but this is a good look, containing both a focused look through individuals and a global, macroeconomic picture of what is going on and why it matters. It is powerful stuff.

The book's structure is awful. Its chapters are tiny. I think that the goal is short attention span spackle, but instead it makes the book feel like a much longer read than it is. The tone is harsh and condemning. I generally feel that this is warranted, given the subject matter, but in congress with the chapter style it gets A Bit Much - you made this conclusion in the last chapter three pages ago; I feel more distracted than persuaded seeing it repeated. I am also just enough of a Libertarian to struggle with parts of the premise, even with being enough of a historian not to.

The most difficult chapter is the one on plastic. The author's unstated contention is that some day we will look on plastic like DDT or leaded gas. Plastic's recyclability is as much a myth as a safe cigarette, and with about as much industry meddling. It, or so the book contends, it is functionally not disposable, becoming a permanent pollutant with no known true removal.

There is no call to action here. The introduction suggests that the author has stopped using single-use plastics. But myself, even if I wanted to, I am not sure that I could, looking at the role that some play in my life. There is a whole infrastructure that is not there to support such a change, at least for me and my needs. There is also no reason to single out single-use plastics when the problem is plastic in general. There is some moments of anti-consumption talk in the book, but it falls into the cliche of anti-technological thought in general. Yes, people do wasteful things with their smartphones, but what is the acceptable ratio of frivolity to seriousness? Is it like Blackstone's formulation where one suicide prevention is worth 10 people radicalized? And (here comes that irritating Libertarian again) can you trust giving someone the power to try and mitigate that?

So yes, if you are like me, you will be reading these words on an e-reader made of plastic, drinking a liquid from a plastic container, eating a breakfast that you cooked yourself, but that every component thereof was contained in plastic in some way and that used plastic cookware, seeing through glasses with plastic lenses in a plastic frame and think 'well, ****.' To some extent, that applies to all the book's arguments. I would like to believe that there is some way to factor in the price of cleanup to different goods, but short of rolling back other environmental legislation (hey, for a Decision '24 bonus round, that might happen!) it would take a reduction in standard of living that goes past a sort of idealized social leveling and into real harm for some people.

Still a recommend for its solid journalism with bite, but know that you're going into World Made by Hand or Parable of the Sower here.

My thanks to the author, Alexander Clapp, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Little, Brown and Company, for making the ARC available to me.

Absolutely fantastic and well-worth the read! This is one of those types of environmental books that I absolutely love. Plenty of shocking facts and statistics coupled with human stories and actual observations from the author.

Shocking and appalling but really made me think about the waste my household is generating and what we can do to minimize it.

A must-read for anyone that throws anything in the trash or thinks they are saving the planet by recycling!

Interesting and horrifying. If you ever wondered what happens to our trash after we consume it, read this book!

Waste War by Alexander Clapp is no dumpster fire of a read. It is a compelling look at the trash we’re generating and its impact on the environment and developing nations. Spoiler Alert: it’s not good news. The book is written through the eyes of a journalist so it feels well-researched without being ponderous. It is something of a call to action as well. Thank you to #netgalley and #littlebrownandcompany for the chance to preview this book.

This was a great concept for recycling and how trash is taken care of after you throw it out. Alexander Clapp has a strong writing style and was able to make me think about what was going on. I thought it was researched well and glad I was able to read this.