Superb reporting that definitively answers the question we really never ask: where on earth does all that stuff go when we're done with it? This majestic account will transform the way you look at trash—and hopefully it will spur some real change at the highest levels.”—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
“Waste Wars is an infuriating, eye-opening and spell-binding account of the globally uneven and unjust politics of trash. Clapp shows how the rubbish the affluent people of rich countries produce travels to poorer countries for processing, creating mountains of toxic waste in the global South, or whirlpools of plastic in our oceans. A must-read for those concerned with the health and hygiene not only of the planet, but also of the people who populate it!”—Laleh Khalili, author of Sinews of War and Trade
“Waste Wars is the Star Wars of trash, a witty and brave account of Alexander Clapp’s journey into the underbelly of modern life. You’ll meet garbage-spotting drones, journalists who register pet fish as waste brokers, and go on a hunt for the El Dorado of poison. As Clapp explains, we live in a world where our ability to create garbage has surpassed Earth’s ability to generate life. The consequences are terrifying, but Clapp’s great book somehow leaves you awe-inspired by the sheer outrageousness of the human ingenuity that has created this toxic mess.”
—Jeff Goodell, author of the New York Times bestseller The Heat Will Kill You First“Briskly paced and filled with colorful and dubious characters worthy of the true crime book it is, Waste Wars inverts the standard story of extractive capitalism to focus on the globalized trillion-dollar waste disposal industry that each year moves billions of tons of toxic garbage from the Global North to the Global South. A quintessential story of deviant globalization, Waste Wars depicts the United States as an empire of plastic, one that deployed disposable mass consumerism as a way to beat the Soviets in the Cold War, only to extend it down to the present day into a structure of globalized overconsumption and wanton disposal that threatens to devour the entire planet, with the poor countries and peoples of the Global South as its first victims.”—Nils Gilman, author of Deviant Globalization: Black Market Economy in the 21st Century