Trash Talk: Moving Toward a Zero-Waste World

by Michelle Mulder

Overview

Humans have always generated garbage, whether it’s a chewed-on bone or a broken cell phone.

Our landfills are overflowing, but with some creative thinking, stuff we once threw away can become a collection of valuable resources just waiting to be harvested. Trash Talk digs deep into the history of garbage, from Minoan trash pits to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and uncovers some of the many innovative ways people all over the world are dealing with waste.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781459830011
Publisher:	Orca Book Publishers
Publication date:	04/13/2021
Series:	Orca Footprints Series , #6
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.19(d)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Michelle Mulder is the founding author of and has written numerous titles in the Orca Footprints series including Pedal It!, Every Last Drop, Trash Talk and Home Sweet Neighborhood. They have also written several works of fiction including The Vegetable Museum and Not a Chance. Michelle lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

Table of Contents

Introduction 6

Chapter 1 A Wealth of Waste

A Mysterious New Invention 8

Into the Bush 8

Rubbish, Rats and Rashes 9

Full Steam Ahead! 10

A City Life for Me 10

Where Do We Put It All? 12

Plastic Dreams 13

No More Dishwashing! 13

Back to Nature 15

Chapter 2 Heaps of Possibilities

The Dirt on Trash 16

No Dirt 17

Rubber Ducky at Sea 18

Munch, Munch, Methane! 20

Hot Stuff 21

Recycling Worries 22

Chapter 3 The Great Dumpster Dive

Landfill or Lunch? 24

The Glean Team 25

Tuneful Trash 26

Sitting on Garbage 26

From Wheels to Walls 29

A Good, Warm Book 30

Don't Toss That Toothbrush! 31

Make It a Maker Party 32

Garbage, Be Gone! 33

Chapter 4 No Garbage Here

Stop! It's the Plastic Police! 34

Poison in My Plate!? 35

Please Feed the Worms 36

Getting Your Fix 36

Good Neighbors 38

A Trip to the Trash Palace 38

Zeroing in on Zero Waste 39

A Fresh, Fragrant Future, Anyone? 43

Acknowledgments 44

Resources 45

Index 46

Editorial Reviews

"[An] important title on how to value our environment."

Coombs Report Summer Reading List for Kids

"Mulder focuses not only on reducing consumption but also on how we can recoup some of the energy and resources that are thrown away. Ingenious ideas like insulating homes with jeans or weaving old fishing nets into carpeting are just a couple ideas that will spark readers’ imaginations. With full-color photos of kids in action and startling but fascinating trivia about how much trash the world’s population produces, this offers a very compelling argument for conservation."

Booklist

"There is a nice balance of text and vibrant photos; content is a blend of scientific fact with historical and anecdotal vignettes so that adolescents can relate to the issues while contributing to a solution. Mulder presents an array of solutions, along with several examples of innovative projects demonstrating recycling, reusing, and composting. Due to the relevancy of the topic and clear message to modern teens and pre-teens, this is a valuable purchase for most youth collections."

School Library Connection

"I look forward with great anticipation to each new Orca Footprints [title]. They have been beautifully designed, well researched and blessed with terrific writing. This one is no exception...[Mulder] includes personal observations and anecdotes from her travels and from her life in Victoria today to make us cognizant of simple solutions to some of the ways in which we dispose of unwanted and unneeded objects. The 'Trash Facts' are interesting and inspiring. A wealth of impressive color photos, a table of contents, an index and a list of additional books, movies and websites add to the appeal and to the value."

Sal's Fiction Addiction blog

"Although the problem is huge, the author writes in a positive and upbeat style and encourages readers to be creative in thinking of solutions. The book is illustrated with many, high quality,
colour photographs. There are references to other current resources, including movies and websites, for further study."

Resource Links

"The text is written in a conversational style which will appeal to readers. 'Trash Facts' provide additional trivia while colour photographs, perfectly suited to the text, add to the reader’s understanding of the concepts presented...An interesting, thought-provoking book that might inspire some readers to spark some environmental initiatives of their own. Highly Recommended."

CM Magazine

"Mulder focuses not only on reducing consumption but also on how we can recoup some of the energy and resources that are thrown away. Ingenious ideas like insulating homes with jeans or weaving old fishing nets into carpeting are just a couple ideas that will spark readers’ imaginations. With full-color photos of kids in action and startling but fascinating trivia about how much trash the world’s population produces, this offers a very compelling argument for conservation."

Booklist

04/01/2015
Gr 5–7—Both a history of trash and a manual of its elimination (or diminution, at least), this nifty book covers a variety of topics, from the trash pits (think archaic sanitary landfills) of the ancient Minoans to the gross filth of New York City in 1850. Employing readable language, Mulder chronicles the development of garbage disposal and goes on to castigate our throw-it-away-and-buy-a-new-one way of thinking. She discusses reformatting, reusing, and repairing to lessen the landfill burdens and presents ways to cut down the enormous amounts of rubbish humans produce on a global daily basis. "Trash Facts" pop up, as do "Take in the Trash" notes. Colorful photos record garbage issues around the world and innovative solutions to cope with this mountainous problem. Pair this with such green titles as Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin's challenging True Green Kids: 100 Things You Can Do to Save the Planet (National Geographic, 2008) and Brad Herzog's simpler but eye-catching S Is for Save the Planet: A How-to-Be-Green Alphabet (Sleeping Bear, 2009) for a further look at our smelly, bulky accumulations and inventive ways to change our wasteful ways. VERDICT An informative call to action for young greenies.—Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY

School Library Journal

2015-02-03
To dumpster dive, to glean, perchance to dream of a zero-waste world.Mulder tells the garbage story in clean and engrossing prose, complemented by stock artwork and photographs. Humans have always made trash—eat that wooly mammoth leg, and you are left with a wooly mammoth bone—though trash production took off exponentially with the establishment of settled communities. What is trash, asks Mulder? Trash is something that no longer is useful. But use is in the eye of the beholder. An empty yogurt container could be chucked out the car window, or it could serve as a pencil holder. Old jeans can be used for housing insulation, as can tires or books or, weirdly, toothbrushes. Mulder provides all sorts of alternatives to incineration, landfills and ocean dumping. She explorers the cons of recycling—it can produce as much methane as cows; it consumes a lot of energy; it results in an often weakened product—as well as many pros, and she throws in plenty of mind-twisting sidebars: Yes, those styrene containers keeping your fast-food burger warm may well be serving you a dose of brain damage. Ultimately Mulder suggests we not make it in the first place. Enclosed in these pages is plenty of food for thought and examples for direct action. (Nonfiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews