Summary of Neil’s review:
In Edward Humes’ Total Garbage: How We Can Fix Our Waste and Heal the World, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author provides an excellent introduction to the plastic crisis, combining revealing facts with profiles of entrepreneurs, researchers, and activists working on waste solutions. Humes’ clear prose describes the ubiquity of microplastics and their 2,400 toxic elements, the history of the plastic industry from Bakelite to today’s 400-million-ton behemoth, and the chaos wrought by China’s 2018 “National Sword” policy on US recycling programs.
However, Neil Seldman’s review argues that Total Garbage falls short by focusing primarily on individual actions rather than the collective organizing necessary to change the economic rules that created the throwaway society. While Humes profiles inspiring individuals like MacArthur “Trash Genius” Jenna Jambeck and Maine’s EPR organizer Sarah Nichols, he glosses over the grassroots anti-incineration victories he documented so well in his 2012 book Garbology. The review emphasizes that any victory over the solid waste crisis will emerge from organized citizens and small businesses demanding systemic change: bans on toxic packaging, prohibitions on landfilling organics, and shutting down incinerators that waste more energy than they produce.
Seldman concludes that while Total Garbage accurately depicts runaway consumption and provides valuable grounding in the plastic crisis, it misses the deep post-WWII economic forces that created the throwaway economy and the power of grassroots movements, from local Sierra Clubs to the Zero Waste International Alliance, that are the true agents of change. Bottom-up organizing for mandatory recycling, composting, and plastic bag bans has been the calling card of the Zero Waste movement, and this collective action will outlast political setbacks to build an economy based on secondary resources, repaired products, and safe packaging.
Read Neil’s Full Review [pdf].
Recommended companion reads:
- A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies by Matt Simon
- Rethink Plastic: The Impacts of Plastics on Planet Earth by Bob Geddert (Earth Day 2025)
- Reinventing the Supply Chain: A 21st Century Covenant with America by Jack Buffington [read Neil’s review]