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Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade

Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade

Adam Minter
$18.00
Publication Date: April 14th, 2015
Publisher:
Bloomsbury Press
ISBN:
9781608197934
Pages:
304

Description

When you drop your Diet Coke can or yesterday's newspaper in the recycling bin, where does it go? Probably halfway around the world, to people and places that clean up what you don't want and turn it into something you can't wait to buy. In Junkyard Planet, Adam Minter--veteran journalist and son of an American junkyard owner--travels deep into a vast, often hidden, five-hundred-billion-dollar industry that's transforming our economy and environment.

With unmatched access to and insight on the waste industry, and the explanatory gifts and an eye for detail worthy of a John McPhee or a William Langewiesche, Minter traces the export of America's junk and the massive profits that China and other rising nations earn from it. What emerges is an engaging, colorful, and sometimes troubling tale of how the way we consume and discard stuff fuels a world that recognizes value where Americans don't. Junkyard Planet reveals that Americans might need to learn a smarter way to take out the trash.

About the Author

Adam Minter grew up in a family of scrap dealers in Minneapolis. He became a professional journalist and now serves as the Shanghai correspondent for Bloomberg World View, in addition to making regular contributions to the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and other publications. He now lives in Shanghai and blogs at shanghaiscrap.com. Junkyard Planet is his first book.

Praise for Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade

“Eye-opening . . . [Minter is] an excellent guide to this sprawling and bewildering trade.” —Wall Street Journal

“Superbly researched.” —Financial Times

“Minter's skillful compilation of trade statistics in and of itself would make Junkyard Planet a strong book. But what tips it into greatness is the confident, sympathetic voice in which he narrates his peripatetic odyssey through the world's junkyards.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“A satisfying investigation-cum-travelogue.” —Mother Jones

“Fascinating.” —Atlantic Cities

“Lively and entertaining . . . Junkyard Planet is a book for anyone interested in the environment, the economics of recycling, or a thoughtful look at the consumption we take for granted.” —Brooklyn Bugle