Trash Talk: An Eye-Opening Exploration of Our Planet's Dirtiest Problem [Paperback]

An eye-opening, illustrated look at something we often take for granted—our trash, and the systems in place that make it disappear (or not)

In a world of mass consumption and busy schedules, taking the time to understand our own trash habits can be daunting. In Trash Talk, the ever-curious and talented Iris Gottlieb pulls back the curtain on the intricacies of the global trash production system and its contribution to climate change. From the history of the mafia’s rule of the New York sanitation system to orbital debris (space trash) to the myth of recycling, Gottlieb will help readers see trash in a whole new way.
    Complete with beautiful illustrations and several landfills’ worth of research, Trash Talk shines a much-needed light on a system that has been broken for far too long, providing readers with surprising, disgusting, and insightful information to better understand how we affect garbage and how it affects us. A must-read for anyone who cares about understanding how the Earth got 'trashed.'
--Kirkus

“Gottlieb’s candor and willing­ness to call out these painful truths make Trash Talk a book readers will remember and share.”
--BookPage

As this sprightly book makes clear, it's hard to throw something 'away' because a finite planet doesn't really have an away--not even in orbit, where space junk is piling up. So we better start thinking through some new approaches!
--Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

Trash Talk is a brilliant, revelatory delight to read. It is an anthropological whodunit that thoroughly describes how much we extract from the l¢