A Review of Garbage Land by Kathe Winkler-Low
Rating: 5 Stars (Excellent)
Elizabeth Royte has illuminated the world of garbage through persistence and determination and easy-to-read prose. While packed with facts and figures, the numbers come alive with her comparisons and analogies to make them more comprehensible. Royte has comprehensively covered the routes of our various forms of waste including, where appropriate, back to the manufacturer.
Recommended for all concerned citizens, for all environmentally astute citizens, and for all waste-producing citizens.
Submitted on 8:04 PM on 3/21/07

A Review of Garbage Land by Keith Rogers
Rating: 5 Stars (Excellent)
Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte was an inspiring look into the complicated and convoluted path our garbage, sewage, and recycling takes to its final destination. It seems that as our waste leaves our house, it takes many different paths, but eventually goes into a single point of concentration, the dump. These waste treatment processes all cross various ethical lines as well. Sewage is made into pellets and then used as fertilizer, despite its sometimes high level of toxic carcinogens and heavy metals.
As I was reading the section on landfill lining and that form of treatment, I was disgusted. The fact that landfills are not making their best effort to protect the environment from leachate, and thereby not only giving a very clear “we couldn’t care less” to the people around them, but also forces the people to pay for any restoration and cleanup cost in the long run, is quite disgusting, in my opinion. It reminds me of the many essays I have written that only prove to show me that America is becoming more apathetic towards the people and more empathetic to corporations, as time goes on. It seems as though the corporations are saying that, since they do not want to deal with the mess that burying everything a person wishes to discard inevitably creates, they will dump it on someone else so that they can lower costs and raise profits. After all, that is what this country is all about… right?
As for recycling, when people do tours of recycling on television, there never seems to be the mention of the rejection of material that is talked about in Royte’s book. I find it very interesting that it is not something that is talked about much. She also makes the claim that the plastic on spaghetti containers and envelopes does not need to be removed for the recycling process, but from what the rest of text sounded like, she is assuming that her contribution of plastic to the mix has no effect. There are enough people thinking like this without the author of a book saying it is unnecessary. It could possibly lower the amount of waste trucked off with the plastic, and there is likely paper attached to it.
Overall, I was very pleased with the book. It did what I thought it would and wanted it to. It raised my awareness and disturbed me.

Submitted on 1:09 PM on 3/21/07

A Review of Garbage Land by Heng Phe
Rating: 4 Stars (Good)
I thought Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte is a good book to read for anyone who is interested in environmental issues. I really enjoyed her illustrative images of all the facts she described. It was a little overwhelming with all the facts, but her symbolism made it much easier to grasp. Some of her information was repeated in a way, but I think this was to effective stick it in the readers head about how damaging garbage really is. Some of the things she sees are horrifying in a way that someone didn’t know this was actually happening. Like how New York’s trash is flown away to a different landfill. As well as how the sewage decomposed to make fertilizers for California’s orange farm. At first reading this book, she gives a sense of false hope. But in the end, she talks about how instead of just recycling, we can help effectively change the world--by reducing the amount we use. For example, not until reading his book and taking the environmental class I took, I started to reduce the amount of paper/plastic bags I use. Instead, I’ve brought my own bags when buying something, or even just carrying it out when it is a small item. She gives a journalist investigation of her trash and her consumption. She talks about how if the world were to consume at the same rate of the US, we would need four earths for a recourses need. Our society is such an individualistic society that we only really look out for ourselves. We tend to consume a tremendous amount for self-fulfillment. This is mainly caused by media and the images it shows us. It makes it seems like the more we have, the better our lives will be. But all in the end, it makes things worst. We waste money for tings that we don’t need. The things we throw away are often not reusable anymore and thus this hikes up the price in that resource. All and all, it shows you the great deal of trash we use as well as the great amount of effort we do to “hide” those trash. I think everyone should read this book.
Submitted on 12:53 PM on 3/19/07

A Review of Garbage Land by Jeremy Jones
Rating: 5 Stars (Excellent)
The book, Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte, provided compelling insight into the problems that mass consumption and the waste produced by individuals, groups, and industries has created for the facilities and landfills that house and contain our garbage. Readers of Garbage Land will find Royte's work informative, whether one is educated or new to the subject of the environment, as the book covers a broad spectrum of issues ranging recycling, composting, re-using to the discussion of the economic impact to cities and the local municipalities.
It was interesting to follow the journey an individual's garbage would make before it reached the ultimate destination, whether the byproduct was recycled for material reuse or resale, composted into mulch or soil enhancements, or was the garbage transferred to a local or out-of-state landfill for containment. Royte’s descriptions and statistical accounts for the amount of garbage produced by society allowed the reader to gain a perspective to the scale of this problem and suggested the scope of the mass waste concern goes beyond the management of containment and disposal of garbage.
Elizabeth Royte offers a look into the philosophies behind Zero Waste as a means for growing populations to manage the abundance of waste produced by consumption and industrial production. The general idea behind Zero Waste as discussed by Royte suggest that the current recycling programs and the way we manage our garbage is just the start of a new way of approaching waste disposal. To achieve Zero Waste would require an overall reduction in the consumption of goods, products, and services, requiring products contain a greater percentage of recycled-product content, and seeking ways to re-engineer the packages our products are stored in, such as sending them back to the manufacturer or reusing in another form or capacity.
Though it may or may not have been Elizabeth Royte’s goal for the reader to develop, by the end of the book, a “moral alarm” that lingers in the subconscious. I have found myself at different times of the day contemplating the purchase of a certain items based on packaging, separating garbage for recyclable and/or compost materials, and reducing the use of paper when possible.

Submitted on 12:03 PM on 3/19/07

A Review of Garbage Land by Ae Ja Kim
Rating: 5 Stars (Excellent)
"Garbage land" was great book and very impressive to me. Many of us including me might be curious about what happends to our garbage after we throw it out but I believe we never thought about trying to follow our own trash to find out just like her. Her adventures in waste management brought me a chance to even ponder of my waste habit. Anyone who cares about the environment or anyone who really want to do something for the environment, we should read this book and need to share ideas actively with other people including our kids. We have to know that our attitude and decisions about consumption and waste management have a very real impact on our environment. If we don't change our bad habit of creating waste and ignore our environmental crisis, the garbage we generate will always be with us and finally they will win as the NY Sanitary commissioner's saying. She points out the average American throws out 4.3 pounds of garbage per day. We should talk about the garbage more often and should conserve resources for our children's future.
Submitted on 12:49 AM on 3/19/07