"*Starred Review* We the people of America are living in an official state of garbage denial, Humes, a Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist and author (Eco Barons, 2009), informs us, for we seem totally unaware that each of us, over the course of a lifetime, will generate 102 tons of trash. Zestful in his curiosity and irrepressible in his vivid chronicling, Humes takes us on a garbage tour, beginning with a hoarders' home, where an elderly couple were trapped and nearly killed by accumulated trash, and moving on to Puentes Hills, where a monumental Southern California landfill has become a garbage mountain. As Humes describes the complex and constant operations there, he swings into a fascinating history of trash, from ancient Athens and the first municipal dump to the legendary filth of nineteenth-century New York City to the crux of today's challenges, the plasticization of America. The plague of plastic bags and bottles and mindless, credit-card-fueled consumerism has many dire consequences, the worst of which is the trashing of the oceans, which have become poisonous plastic chowder. Then there arethe toxic politics and big business of garbage. But Humes finds hope in the innovative work of dedicated garbologists, trash trackers, and activists who are intent on exposing the hazards and travesties of excessive trash and pointing the way to the low-waste path." (Booklist)
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