A review by kirnet
Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future by Oliver Franklin-Wallis

informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

An incredibly informative dive into human waste: how it's created, where we put it, its relationships with colonialism and the environment, and the dangers it poses. Franklin-Wallis dives into landfills, composting, recycling, nuclear waste, mining, sewers, and more, tracking them from their respective industries to his own at-home life with a wife and two young children. It's an eye opening and quite frankly depressing look into relationship between capitalism and our hellish waste landscape (the push towards personal responsibility, greenwashing, waste colonialism, profit margins determining the efficacy of actual change), but is still written in an entertaining and hopeful way. The main take away is consume less, and don't be tricked into thinking we can buy our way out of this.