Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life Of Garbage [Hardcover]

Heather Rogers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2005

From waste basket to landfill, a vertiginous descent into the mysteriously hellish world of trash.

• The average American discards almost seven pounds of trash per day.
• With only 5 percent of the global population, the U.S. consumes 30 percent of the planet's resources and churns out 30 percent of its wastes.
• Garbage production in the United States has doubled in the last thirty years.
• About 80 percent of U.S. products are used once, then thrown away.
• 95 percent of all plastic, two-thirds of all glass containers, and 50 percent of all aluminum beverage cans are never recycled; instead they just get burned or buried.

Every day a phantasmagoric rush of spent, used, and broken riches flows through our homes, offices, and cars. The United States is the planet's number-one producer of trash; each American discards over 2,600 pounds annually. But where does all that garbage go?

In Gone Tomorrow, journalist Heather Rogers guides us through the grisly, oddly fascinating world of trash. Excavating the history of rubbish handling from the 1800s—an era of garbage-grazing urban hogs and dump-dwelling rag pickers—to the present, with its brutally violent mob-controlled cartels and high-tech rural "mega-fills" operated by billion-dollar garbage corporations, Rogers investigates the roots of America's waste-addicted culture. Gone Tomorrow also explores the politics of recycling, a popular but limited solution that, as Rogers points out, should only be seen as a first step toward much greater reform.

Part exposé, part social commentary, this work traces the connections between modern industrial production, consumer culture, and our disposable lifestyle.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Americans produce the most waste of any people on Earth, says Rogers, but few of us ever think about where all that trash goes. Rogers endeavors to show the inner workings of the waste stream, from the garbage truck to the landfill, incinerator or parts unknown. She points out that recycling, once touted as an environmental lifesaver, "has serious flaws," and has done little to mitigate garbage's long history of environmental damage. Rogers also includes chapters on the history of waste removal and disposal, highlighting early sanitation efforts in New York City, as well as the multi-billion-dollar, multinational business of garbage. Consistently engaging, the book delineates the myriad problems caused by the country's waste output, but offers very few concrete examples of what readers can do to improve the garbage situation; instead, Rogers stoically acknowledges that "while consumers making choices with the environment in mind is a good thing, it is in no way a real solution to our trash woes." Nevertheless, the book is an intriguing look into an often misunderstood and overlooked industry.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* America leads the world in garbage, and that is nothing to be proud of. A clear-thinking and peppery writer, Rogers presents a galvanizing expose of how we became the planet's trash monsters. Americans were ingeniously thrifty until industrialization ushered in consumer culture and the age of disposable goods and built-in obsolescence. But once the public was exhorted to buy stuff whether they needed it or not--and Rogers provides many eye-opening examples of corporate strategies and propaganda--new forms of garbage began to pile up and break down into toxic substances. Rogers details everything that is wrong with today's wasteful packaging, bogus recycling, and flawed landfills and incinerators. Here, too, is the inside story of the plastic revolution and the irresponsibly wasteful beverage market, the Mafia's involvement in commercial waste, and the illegal overseas shipping of garbage, especially toxic e-waste--trashed computers and cell phones. Rogers exhibits black-belt precision in her assault on American corporations that succeed in "greenwashing" the public while remaining "hell-bent on ever-expanding production no matter what the ecological toll." Set this beside Elizabeth Royte's Garbage Land (2005), and contemplate Rogers' dictum: garbage "never really goes away." Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (October 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565848799
• ISBN-13: 978-1565848795
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #748,159 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Environmentalists, read this book! January 7, 2006

By Cathy

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

When I purchased this book, I thought it might add to my store of trivia knowlege, sort of a fun little look at something most of us never think about. I expected to describe it with words like "nifty." This book was not what I expected, and I'm glad.

This book was an engrossing discussion of how the nature and quantity of consumer garbage (as opposed to industrial waste) has changed. Beginning with the Industrial Revolution and moving up through today, this book considers the ways in which government policy and the corporate profit motive create a socity in which garbage - lots and lots of garbage - is inevitable, and why even the best-intentioned efforts at recycling barely make a dent in the mountain of trash.

I have a professional background in economics, and so I got a great deal out of some of Rogers' arguements that were based in economic theory. However, her simple, straightforward style makes it easy for anyone to follow her reasoning.

The subtitle, The Hidden Life of Garbage, was misleading. Perhaps a better subtitle might have been The History and Social Implications of Garbage. Although that sounds a bit scholarly, this book, while extremely well researched, did not read at all like a textbook. Rather it was an approachable discussion of why garbage occurs and why the current solutions are not working.

A must-read for anyone who cares about planet Earth, whether they are chaining themselves to trees or just recycling their soda can!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Make sense of all those bins, bags, cans, tubs, labels once and for all! January 9, 2006

By D. Tucker

Format:Hardcover

In this incredibly well researched and clearly written social history of rubbish, Rogers does 3 things (at least).

1. Denormalizes waste: It is a serious myth that the garbage we live with and create today has always existed. This historical presentation shows us the ways in which people had to be TAUGHT to waste.

2. Teaches the concept of Political Economy through the lens of something that we all touch but rarely think about. There is a flawed logic that organizes our production and consumption patterns and I have never understood it so well than through Rogers tale-telling.

3. Implicates the industrial Producers and their accompanying PR machines as the primary perpetrators - not the litter-bug consumers that we've all been taught to blame.

(Plus the book taught me about 10 synonyms for garbage that I never knew existed. )

"The Golden Age of Waste" is by far the most enlightening chapter in the book. The rest of the chapters successfully sandwich this middle chapter to help us make sense of the economic, historical and cultural logic's that have created the trash that surrounds us today. The critique of corporate green-washing is also particularly helpful for anyone who is slightly suspicious of the re-branding efforts that have reconfigured the public face of many corporations in the last 20 years but not erased any of their polluting tendencies.

I have not read a book in a long time that actually found such relevance in my daily life. Garbage: you see it, live with it and make decisions about it every single day - so it is mandatory to finally have this tool kit to help us understand how it got into our collective lives.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars 10 star must read Fun as well as informative information June 1, 2006

By Beth DeRoos HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Every now and then a book or two comes along that makes me want to get on the phone to friends or email friends to tell them they must read the book. This happened this past week when Gone Tomorrow the Hidden Life of Garbage by Heather Rogers arrived at my cottage.

We are a homeschooling family who as a project spent a year looking at what we buy and why and what happens to what we put out for recycling and refuge pick up, as well as what gets flushed or composted. So this book became part of our curriculum. In less than three months our water usage dropped 60%, and the garbage can went from being overflowing to being placed out once a month and then with very little in it. Am now considering cancelling the service when the contract is up. And going in with three other neighbors and combining what little we all have and sharing the cost.

Recently someone asked me why we don't put our recycling bins out or rarely put the garbage container out and we had to explain that just because we have them doesn't mean we have to fill them and put them out every week. And this is where the book is so on target when talking about how there is a downsize to the whole recycling area. It is one of those things that came about because of good intentions, but hasn't helped stop people from actually buying stuff. Also in target is how the author says that often the recyclable get dumped in with the regular trash pick up because there is no local market for the items. This is what we discovered one morning when we saw the garbage truck picking up the recycling bins and garbage at the same time, not separately. Even more so now that gas prices have gone up and garbage companies cant raise prices so they dump everything at once. So we simply save the glass and what aluminum items we have and make a run to the real recycling center where we also make some extra money.

Much like I did as a kid when I would eagerly walk the roads on the island we lived on in summer to gather up the cans and bottles the tourists left behind, to turn in for money.

The author also does a great job in explaining how packaging of products is overdone, but also done because we live in a highly suit happy society. So having that extra foil safety cap on a bottle of pills, or secure bag around the lettuce raise the cost of items as well as add to landfills. Around here Styrofoam has to be put out with regular garbage not with recyclables. Same with those pesky popcorn packing things.

On page 207 the author writes about an area in Oakland, California where the Batcave garden sits. While it may not be for everyone there is enough helpful can do information from this group that most Americans could adopt that would cut down drastically on what they buy and then what they discard. Heck most Americans would do better with less lawn to cut and more vegetables being planted that could save on food costs as well on garbage since edibles are compostable.

The author provides so much information on the big business that garbage is and how the costs get passed on to us in ways we often do not see. From increased food prices, to hidden fees for getting rid of items.

Was especially pleased to see on page 210 the group Freecycle mentioned, since I belong to my local Freecycle group and love the attitude that rather than dump something why not see if there is someone locally who can use the item. To find a group near you go to their internet site which is Freecycle.org

Also loved seeing where Berkeley's Urban One was mentioned. They have a license to glean items from the city's dump that are useable, and then the items are taken to Eco Park where they are sold, for a profit. There is a similar place in Sonora east of Angles Camp that I go to that does the same thing. Some areas have twice yearly pick ups where you can set anything from furniture to appliances out for pick up. We visit these areas and gather items that we can use or give to others in need. Its a shame that Americans are so obese in so many ways, and throw out such useable items.

So I recommend this book for anyone who wants a mature education on garbage and what we can and should do to reduce the amount we produce. Its not good enough to simply preach a use and recycle mantra.