Anyone wrestling with the complexities of sustainability and recycling can appreciate Adam Minter’s insights gathered from his personal experience in the family scrapyard, his travels across the United States, and his fact finding trips throughout China.
By Adam MinterBloomsbury Press
Kindle Edition
$9.99
Review of "Junkyard Planet"
Anyone wrestling with the complexities of sustainability and recycling can appreciate Adam Minter’s insights gathered from his personal experience in the family scrapyard, his travels across the United States, and his fact finding trips throughout China. Minter enlightens us about the overall economics that drive the multi-billion dollar scrap industry, which includes those of us trading our soda pop cans, plastic bottles, and contaminated aluminum window frames for cash at the local recycling center, and extends to the larger players who fill the empty shipping containers returning to China with our scrap. We have done well enough that our largesse and convenience have made possible a steady stream of recyclables that are building the fortunes of scrap industry titans worldwide, raising the standard of living of some, and diminishing the health of others. Our affluenza begs the question, “What do we do with our scrap and waste?” And, before we point the finger in condemnation of the unecological and unhealthy practices employed by others recycling our waste, can we demonstrate a viable, economical, better way? After all, they wouldn’t have this mess unless our consumerism hadn’t commissioned it. Kudos to Adam Minter for producing a smooth read to start the discussion. More laws and regulations may only add a complexity driving up costs to the consumer, and the crafty will set aside or ignore. Until the thinking of the consuming public can be elevated, we won’t be able to hire the captains of industry to help us clean up our mess.
