Junkyard planet : travels in the billion-dollar trash trade / Adam Minter.
2013
HD9975.A2 M495 2013 (Mapit)
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Details
Title
Junkyard planet : travels in the billion-dollar trash trade / Adam Minter.
Author
Minter, Adam, 1970-
Edition
First U.S. edition.
ISBN
9781608197910
1608197913
1608197913
Published
New York, NY : Bloomsbury Press, 2013.
Language
English
Description
284 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : color illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
Call Number
HD9975.A2 M495 2013
Dewey Decimal Classification
338.4/7363728
Summary
"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 deeply into a vast, often hidden, multibillion-dollar industry that's transforming our economy and environment. Minter takes us from back-alley Chinese computer recycling operations to recycling factories capable of processing a jumbo jet's worth of trash every day. Along the way, we meet an international cast of characters who have figured out how to squeeze Silicon Valley-scale fortunes from what we all throw away. Junkyard Planet reveals how "going green" usually means making money-- and why that's often the most sustainable choice, even when the recycling methods aren't pretty. 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 William Langewiesche, Minter traces the export of America's garbage 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 brings home the ascent of a developing 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"--Dust jacket flap.
Note
Includes index.
Record Appears in
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Table of Contents
Making soup
Grubbing
Honey, barley
The intercontinental
The backhaul
The grimy boomtown heat
Big waste country
Homer
Plastic land
The reincarnation department
The golden ingot
The coin tower
Hot metal flows
Canton
Ashes to ashes, junk to junk.
Grubbing
Honey, barley
The intercontinental
The backhaul
The grimy boomtown heat
Big waste country
Homer
Plastic land
The reincarnation department
The golden ingot
The coin tower
Hot metal flows
Canton
Ashes to ashes, junk to junk.