Review: Garbageland by Elizabeth Royte

Last word first: Thought provoking and a little scary.

Description: Royte is a journalist with a nose for the "sordid afterlife" of trash, thoroughly at home in the putrid world of "Coney Island whitefish" (used condoms); "disco rice" (maggots); and—the darling of American consumer culture and the nemesis of waste activists—"Satan's resin" (plastic). Her book takes the form of a quest for the surprising final resting places of her yogurt cups, beer bottles, personal computer, and organic-fig-cookie packaging, and leads to an impassioned attack on overconsumption in America. If Royte does not quite demonstrate the muckraking skills of an Eric Schlosser in "Fast Food Nation," she does expose the feculent underside of our appetite for things and challenges her readers to disprove the resigned assessment of a former New York sanitation commissioner: "In the end, the garbage will win. (From the New Yorker.)

My thoughts: I have to admit that I didn't read every word of this book, just skimmed through. It was a little bit too dry and detailed for me. I am interested in environmental issues, I guess I'm not THAT interested.

This book had a really interesting concept. Royte started out weighing and analyzing her own trash output, and ended up investigating where all our trash goes, and where is ought to go. Basically, there's a LOT of trash out there. And it doesn't get disposed of properly. This was a great investigation, but not as readable as say, The Onmivore's Dilemma.

About Elizabeth Royte: Elizabeth Royte has written for The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, National Geographic, The New York Times Book Review, the New Yorker, Outside, Smithsonian, and other national magazines.