Throwaway Nation: The Ugly Truth about American Garbage

by Jeff Dondero

Overview

Americans are burying ourselves in our own waste. It’s befouling our air, land, waters, food, and bodies. The US tosses out enough foodstuff to feed the rest of the world. America is the largest buyer of fashion and cosmetics, the second dirtiest industry in the world. We lead the planet in transportation usage and waste, and we’re now polluting outer space. Throwaway Nation takes a look at the pileup of waste in the US, including the problem of plastic, the industry of overmedication, e-waste products, everyday garbage, fast fashion trash, space waste, and other forms of profligacy that serve to make our nation the biggest waster on the planet. Looking at the environmental impact of so much garbage, Dondero explores not just how we got here and where we’re headed, but ways in which we might be able to curb the tide.

From what you do and don’t eat, what and how your products are packaged, the rampant production of clothes, the space and waste in which you work, live, what you breath, eat, drink, the tools you use to work and play, the energy overproduced and ill-used for a pleasant lifestyle, the waste you generate, and how humans are beginning to clutter the cosmos—all and more are profiled in the Throwaway Nation—and what we ought to do to prohibit and mitigate the flow of our garbage and to use it productively.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538110324
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	03/15/2019
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Jeff Dondero has a diverse background and experience in writing, ranging from web content, B2B, books, hard news, and interviews to feature writing. He began his career as stringer and freelancer for the San Francisco Examiner, worked as a reporter and editor for several suburban newspapers, was the entertainment editor for The Marin Independent Journal, a writer and editor of various magazines, wrote for KTVU-TV in the San Francisco Bay Area, toiled in a trade magazine mill, and created a website dedicated to sustainable construction industries (http://www.greenbuildingdigest.net/). He was invited as a writer-in-residence at the art colony in Rancho Vista, Arizona in 2014, where he wrote a slim volume of poetry. He continues to expand his national readership with books, social media, various writers’ blogs and websites, radio and television appearances. Jeff Dondero is also the author of The Energy Wise Home: Practical Ideas for Saving Energy, Money, and the Planet (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017) and The Energy Wise Workplace: Practical and Cost-Effective Ideas for a Sustainable and Green Workplace (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017).

Table of Contents

Preface

,

,

Acknowledgement and Disclaimer

,

Chapter 1

,

Trash Talkin’

,

Chapter 2

,

Wasting Our 02

,

Chapter 3

,

Waterways Waste Watch

,

Chapter 4

,

Losing Land

,

Chapter 5

,

Space Junk

,

Chapter 6

,

From Farm to Fish to Table to Trash

,

Chapter 7

,

Trendy to Trash

,

Chapter 8

,

Sweet and Sour Charity

,

Chapter 9

,

Paper Waste Chase

,

Chapter 10

,

Plastics A Blessing and A Curse

,

Chapter 11

,

Packaging Thinking Inside and Outside the Box

,

Chapter 12

,

E-Waste. What We Couldn’t Do without, We Don’t Know What Do With

,

Chapter 13

,

Opening Pandora’s Pharmacy

,

Chapter 14

,

The Impaired Industry of Producing Power

,

Chapter 15

,

Industry of Waste

,

Chapter 16

,

Government Senseless Super Spending

,

Chapter 17

,

The 40 Hour Work Week Waste

,

Chapter 18

,

Pet Waste—It’s No Poop

,

Chapter 19

,

Goof Fortune in Garbage

,

Editorial Reviews

03/04/2019

In this exceedingly well-researched, if less than cohesive, study, journalist Dondero (The Energy Wise Home) diagnoses the ills of, and possible cures for, the modern American “throwaway nation.” While painting a frequently discouraging picture of an “age of burying the planet and outer space” in human-made detritus, Dondero still attempts to provide his audience with some hope. “Waste and its problems... are as old as humankind,” but today it’s an increasingly unmanageable problem, not to mention big business—“the trade is a $4 billion industry.” Dondero educates readers about the many different arenas for human-generated waste, from the air (“we’re ruining it at an atmospheric rate”) to the oceans (plastic litter alone is “threatening at least 600 different species”). However, Dondero also provides helpful, simple steps that people can take to help, from burning fewer candles to recycling or repairing electronics, and even to taking on shorter work weeks. The research supporting this book is impressively thorough and presented at each chapter conclusion instead of through the more traditional back-of-the-book format, with the unfortunate effect of disrupting the narrative flow. The work also lacks a definitive wrap-up, instead just drifting off after the end. Nevertheless, Dondero’s survey will leave readers better educated about the current problem and perhaps feeling inspired to conquer it. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Dondero injects dry humor and some interesting trivia into the book, and each chapter has suggested actions for trying to reverse the trend toward disposability. .. There’s so much information collected in this one volume, it would be terrible to let it all go to waste. Learning about the scope of the problem can stoke the energy needed to tackle it head on.

The Progressive Populist

Throwaway Nation is an extensively researched and entertainingly written examination of the detritus of our industrialized and consumer culture: from landfills to toxic waste and from fouled air to the North Pacific gyre. In lively and informed prose, Jeff Dondero takes us on a cradle-to-grave journey that materials take as they pass from the natural world, into our everyday lives, possibly through the recycling process, to the trash bin, and to a final resting place. Packed with facts, tidbits, and insight, Throwaway Nation also provides solutions, small and large.

Kevin Wehr

Starred Review: Humans are the only known species to create non-biodegradable waste, according to science writer Dondero. While our microscopic predecessors left us with an oxygen-rich atmosphere and enriched soils, we pollute. While populations of other animal species reach a balance in nature, we proliferate exponentially. As a species, we produce many tons of waste every second, fouling our air, water, and land and threatening our future. In Throwaway Nation, Dondero enumerates our many wasteful ways, explains their consequences, and offers remedies. He asks every reader to help, suggesting actions that we can take as individuals and identifying difficult societal shifts needed to mitigate climate change, pollution, and depletion of natural resources. As the author’s interests are wide-ranging—including debris in space, hours wasted in offices, and needless government spending—there should be a topic of concern for every reader.

Starred Review Booklist

Starred Review: Humans are the only known species to create non-biodegradable waste, according to science writer Dondero. While our microscopic predecessors left us with an oxygen-rich atmosphere and enriched soils, we pollute. While populations of other animal species reach a balance in nature, we proliferate exponentially. As a species, we produce many tons of waste every second, fouling our air, water, and land and threatening our future. In Throwaway Nation, Dondero enumerates our many wasteful ways, explains their consequences, and offers remedies. He asks every reader to help, suggesting actions that we can take as individuals and identifying difficult societal shifts needed to mitigate climate change, pollution, and depletion of natural resources. As the author’s interests are wide-ranging—including debris in space, hours wasted in offices, and needless government spending—there should be a topic of concern for every reader.

Booklist

Dondero injects dry humor and some interesting trivia into the book, and each chapter has suggested actions for trying to reverse the trend toward disposability . . . There's so much information collected in this one volume, it would be terrible to let it all go to waste. Learning about the scope of the problem can stoke the energy needed to tackle it head on.

Starred Review: Humans are the only known species to create non-biodegradable waste, according to science writer Dondero. While our microscopic predecessors left us with an oxygen-rich atmosphere and enriched soils, we pollute. While populations of other animal species reach a balance in nature, we proliferate exponentially. As a species, we produce many tons of waste every second, fouling our air, water, and land and threatening our future. In Throwaway Nation, Dondero enumerates our many wasteful ways, explains their consequences, and offers remedies. He asks every reader to help, suggesting actions that we can take as individuals and identifying difficult societal shifts needed to mitigate climate change, pollution, and depletion of natural resources. As the author's interests are wide-ranging--including debris in space, hours wasted in offices, and needless government spending--there should be a topic of concern for every reader.

Throwaway Nation is an extensively researched and entertainingly written examination of the detritus of our industrialized and consumer culture: from landfills to toxic waste and from fouled air to the North Pacific gyre. In lively and informed prose, Jeff Dondero takes us on a cradle-to-grave journey that materials take as they pass from the natural world, into our everyday lives, possibly through the recycling process, to the trash bin, and to a final resting place. Packed with facts, tidbits, and insight, Throwaway Nation also provides solutions, small and large.

From the Publisher