ReadingGroupGuides.com - Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte

Garbage Land
On the Secret Trail of Trash
by Elizabeth Royte

List Price: $24.95
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0316738263
Publisher: Little, Brown

Out of sight, out of mind...

Into our trash cans go dead batteries, dirty diapers, bygone burritos, broken toys, tattered socks, eight-track cassettes, scratched CDs, banana peels … But where do these things go next? In a country that consumes and then casts off more and more, what actually happens to the things we throw away?

In Garbage Land, acclaimed science writer Elizabeth Royte leads us on the wild adventure that begins once our trash hits the bottom of the can. Along the way, we meet an odor chemist who explains why trash smells so bad; garbage fairies and recycling gurus; neighbors of massive waste dumps; CEOs making fortunes by encouraging waste or encouraging recycling-often both at the same time; scientists trying to revive our most polluted places; fertilizer fanatics and adventurers who kayak among sewage; paper people, steel people, aluminum people, plastic people, and even a guy who swears by recycling human waste. With a wink and a nod and a tightly clasped nose, Royte takes us on a bizarre cultural tour through slime, stench, and heat-in other words, through the back end of our ever-more supersized lifestyles. By showing us what really happens to the things we've "disposed of," Royte reminds us that our decisions about consumption and waste have a very real impact-and that unless we undertake radical change, the garbage we create will always be with us: in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we consume.

Radiantly written and boldly reported, Garbage Land is a brilliant exploration into the soiled heart of the American trash can.

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1. Elizabeth Royte’s trip to the Gowanus Canal was one of the factors that compelled her to embark on her strange journey. What compelled you to pick up Garbage Land and join her on her journey? Did you ever wonder what actually happened to the things you throw away?

2. Garbage Land is a first-person narrative in which Elizabeth Royte guides readers through the hidden world of garbage. What does this first-person point of view add to the book? Do you think this book would have been as effective if it had been written from an omniscient narrator’s point of view?

3. The author notes that trying to be environmentally responsible isn’t always easy. Indeed, she writes (on page 141) that her publisher couldn’t justify the added cost of printing the book on recycled paper stock. How can we reconcile the moral arguments for recycling with the economic arguments against it?

4. Garbage Land features a bevy of interesting characters, many of whom suggest innovative ways to reduce our garbage footprint. For example, Christina Datz-Romero is a proponent of desktop worm composters. Would you consider using one of these innovative methods? If so, which ones?

5. Elizabeth Royte writes about trailing sanitation workers, visiting waste transfer stations, and exploring landfills. How did getting an inside look at these three parts of the disposal process broaden your understanding of the costs of consumption? What was most surprising about the author’s visits?

6. Less than 27 percent of garbage is recycled and composted. But in some cities—San Francisco, for example—the rate is much higher. What do you think about the measures that the San Francisco government has taken to inch toward the “dream of zero waste”? Do you think similar measures could be effective in your city or town?

7. The author discusses recycling and reducing consumption. Which approach to minimizing garbage does she ultimately think is more effective? Do you agree?

8. Have you noticed a change in our country’s waste stream in your lifetime? Explain your answer.

9. In Garbage Land, a former sanitation commissioner controversially claims, “In the end, the garbage will win.” Does the author seem to agree with this sentiment? Do you?

10. How can we, as a society, reduce our garbage footprint? Has this book made you decide to change your behavior?

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"Very readable account" that will "get you thinking about the dreaded checkout line query at the grocery store".
— Seattle Weekly

"Into our trash cans go dead batteries, dirty diapers, bygone burritos, broken toys, tattered socks, eight-track cassettes, scratched CDs, banana peels... But where do these things go next? In a country that consumes and then casts off more and more, what actually happens to the things we throw away?"
— Bookbrowse.com

"This is probably the best book ever about trash. Usually, garbage is too much 'out of sight, out of mind' to make a lively subject, and what little coverage exists is dry and technical. But Royte...knows how to orchestrate telling statistics and vivid description to illuminate every dirty corner of the business."
— Grist Magazine

"There's little waste in Royte's winning words. Finishing it, the reader feels armed. Seldom has garbage been handled with such care."
— Christian Science Monitor

"Fascinating" and goes onto say "Ms. Royte is a dogged reporter and a vivid writer, which means that her catalog of crimes against nature hits the senses hard. She has a keen eye and a sensitive nose."
—-The New York Times

"In a throwaway culture, a must-read."
— People

"The land of garbage is evidently a war zone, and this book is an astonishing, if pungent, dispatch from the front lines."
— National Geographic Adventure

"What works about Garbage Land is Royte's big-picture approach....Royte is to be praised for taking a simple, smelly idea and blowing it up large. Not only that, but she refuses to stump for simplistic answers to our waste-dependent economy."
— The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Imagine a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder that leaves you unable to throw or flush something away without tracking precisely where it goes....Elizabeth Royte apparently has such a disorder, but rather than (or perhaps in addition to) letting it ruin her life, she had turned it into a likable chronicle of rubbish-realization, Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash."
— New York Times Book Review

"Surrounded by sobering statistics, Royte is a modern-day, modernist muckraker, exhibiting more irony, realism, and resignation than righteous indignation."
— Boston Globe

"As impressive as Royte's doggedness and investigative skill is the care she takes with language. In a book where facts and figures are so plentiful and ominous, felicitous phrasing can work like the proverbial spoonful of sugar....The prose in Garbage Land flows as if its author read each sentence aloud before committing it to print."
— The Washington Post Book World

"The author's adventures in waste management provide a riveting travelogue punctuated by a scathing indictment of American consumption."
— WIRED

"We're talking compost, recyclables, and even crap. They all wind up somewhere, and Royte scrutinizes their journeys with a sharp eye and a pinched nose."
— Mother Jones Magazine

"The author recounts her experiences with a dose of humor that makes it easier to swallow the sobering statistics about our trash....Amid all the data, Royte uses her sharp analytical ability to step back and contemplate the nature of our trash in thought-provoking, philosophical terms."
— The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"Royte's nervy and unprecedented journey through the land of garbage is fascinating, appalling, and—thanks to her keen first-person journalism, commonsense skepticism, and amusing personal asides—downright entertaining."
— Booklist

"Elizabeth Royte immerses herself in the underworld of garbage, a stranger, murkier, more complicated place than any of us would have imagined. Endlessly curious and infectiously enthusiastic, Royte hefts cans with her local 'san men' and sneaks into landfills, bagging the secrets of this overlooked but vitally important realm of life on earth."
— Mary Roach, author of Stiff

"This book stinks! It also entertains, illuminates, frightens, and inspires. Part rollicking road trip, part reconnaissance from the scary front lines of the ecological sciences, Garbage Land takes us deep down into a ninth circle of our own making to reveal the maggoty truths of our throwaway culture."
— Hampton Sides, author of Ghost Soldiers and Americana

"This is the most comprehensive (and funny) look by far at a subject of perennial interest—where does it all go? Any city dweller will read it with fascination and mild horror; if you've ever survived a garbage strike, every smell will come unbidden back to your flaring nostrils."
— Bill McKibben, author of Wandering Home

"An excellent excursion into our ephemera and rejectamenta, both of which say more about us than we ever seem to understand."
— Robert Sullivan, author of Rats and The Meadowlands