Tag Archives: garbage

Review: Total Garbage by Rebecca Donnelly and John Hendrix

Book Review and Content, Middle Grade 8-12, Nonfiction, , , , ,
Total Garbage by Rebecca Donnelly and John D. Dawson

Total Garbage: A Messy Dive into Trash, Waste, and Our World
Rebecca Donnelly and John Hendrix
Henry Holt & Co.
Published March 7, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Total Garbage

Total Garbage by Rebecca Donnelly dives into the messy truth about trash, garbage, waste, and our world—it’s a fact-filled and fascinating illustrated middle grade environmental read!

Trash has been part of human societies since the beginning. It seems like the inevitable end to the process of making and using things—but why?

In this fascinating account of the waste we make, we’ll wade into the muck of history and explore present-day STEM innovations to answer these important questions:

What is garbage?
Where does our garbage come from?
Why do we make so much garbage?
Where does our garbage go?
What can we learn from our garbage?
How bad is our garbage problem?
How can we do better?

Rebecca Donnelly tackles the extraordinary, the icky, and the everyday, helping us see how our choices, personal and societal, impact our world and our planet—and encouraging us make a change.

Back matter includes a timeline of the history of waste management, selected bibliography, and index.

“clear, engaging writing. . . [and] whimsical, informative, detailed teal-tone line drawings add to a captivating and important book. . . A fact-filled and fascinating dumpster dive of a book.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review on Total Garbage

“this book makes garbage fun to read about and is a great choice for browsable nonfiction shelves and curricular tie-ins” —School Library Journal on Total Garbage

My Review

I’ve read a few books about waste and trash in the last few years. Some focus more on different types of waste and others focus more on activities to do as an individual. I think TOTAL GARBAGE did a great job exploring big questions about trash, including some of the reasons we dispose of trash the way we do today and how it impacts the environment.

One of the ways this book doesn’t pull any punches is in its assessment of why we dispose of waste in the way we do: money. Essentially, even when we know a disposal method is harmful for the environment or inefficient, if it’s cheaper or can be repackaged to the public as something positive, then often a company will choose that waste disposal method. I thought the information about recycling campaigns and waste being shipped overseas were eye-opening and presented in a straightforward manner.

I liked that the book still ends with a hopeful note, and that it does offer ways to help at a personal and community level. All in all, I think this is a powerful, informative book that I hope finds a home on many library shelves and in classrooms everywhere. Readers who enjoyed WHEN THE WORLD RUNS DRY by Nancy Castaldo will definitely want to check out TOTAL GARBAGE.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 up.

Representation
Discusses waste problems that affect everyone on the globe, but acknowledges and calls out the fact that marginalized people and people in poverty will be disproportionally effected by problems caused by trash.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
References to waste issues causing health problems and injuring or killing animals.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of TOTAL GARBAGE in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Trashing the Planet by Stuart A. Kallen

Book Review and Content, Nonfiction, , , , , , ,

Trashing the Planet: Examining Our Global Garbage Glut
Stuart A. Kallen
Twenty-First Century Books
Available August 1, 2017

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Humans produce an incredible (or incredibly gross) amount of trash each year. Garbage ends up in landfills, rivers, oceans, and even in space. Controlling this waste to keep it from polluting air and water supplies is a monumental task. Scientists continue to learn more about the impact of waste and chemicals on the environment. Exciting new inventions create opportunities for cleanup to proceed quickly, allowing humans to undo some of the damage done to the environment. But as the mess took a global effort to make, it will take a massive effort to clean up, and understanding how garbage is managed is an important step in that process.

This book made me think much more deeply about the problems we face in terms of disposing waste. It describes some of the complications many landfills wrestle with on a daily basis and what will happen if toxins from these sites leach into our water supply.

There’s been a lot of focus within the current government about rolling back regulations to allow for more unhindered growth of businesses and industries. Without really going into that debate, I’ll say this book raised some important examples from history on why we developed many of those regulations to begin with. One of the things which surprised me was how often the EPA intervenes not just for wildlife protection but for protection for human lives from toxins which have had terrible impact on our health.

My favorite part of the book, though, was learning about some of the amazing solutions being developed to combat the garbage problem. From cities using methane produced by landfills as trash decomposes for an energy source to a trash filtration system which aims to use the oceans’ naturally occurring currents to remove garbage from the water. We may have made a big mess, but we have some amazing people with some incredible ideas working hard to help reduce and hopefully eliminate these problems. It doesn’t mean we can afford to sit back and let them handle things. It’s still so important to get educated—and this book is an excellent starting point. But it’s comforting to know there are solutions, and we can make a difference.

Recommended for Ages 10 up.

Cultural Elements
The book focuses a lot on the way trash is dealt with in America but contains sections dedicated to inventors from other countries who’ve had really cool ideas for ways to better manage garbage.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
None.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.