Garbage Land

Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash is a work of environmental nonfiction by Elizabeth Royte. First published in 2005, the book takes readers on a journey to discover what happens to trash when we throw it out, and the ecological implications of the North American recycling problem. The book received widespread praise upon its release for raising awareness around trash disposal. Royte is a science and nature writer. Her articles appear in publications including National Geographic and The New York Times. She received the Bard College’s John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service. Garbage Land is her first book.

Royte structures Garbage Land around two main narratives. Firstly, Royte describes her own experiences with trash management and how she feels about recycling. She highlights the common problems we face when we try to manage our waste responsibly. Secondly, Royte explores where our waste goes and how it is processed. She covers everything from landfills to incinerators, and she warns us about what happens to the toxic waste, such as mercury, left behind.

In Garbage Land, Royte highlights the global problem with overconsumption. In a commercial world, we buy much more than we need. We waste too much, and this waste must go somewhere. Royte explains that, if we don’t tackle overconsumption and the mass amounts of waste flooding our trash cans, we will never escape our own garbage. From the air we breathe to the water we bathe in, traces of our waste will live on forever unless we act now to control the ecological damage we’ve caused.



Royte begins the book by following her own trash. She follows her rubbish bags from the trash can to their destination. It’s not an easy journey, as she explains. Unsurprisingly, the truck operators and sanitation officers ignore her. They don’t want to talk about what goes on behind the scenes. They don’t want to reveal how ill-equipped North America is to handle the volume of trash its buried under every day. Garbage Land implores us to find cost-efficient and effective ways to modernize the waste disposal process.

Royte lives in New York where the waste problem is particularly obvious thanks to population density. New York hosts Fresh Kills, which is the largest landfill site in the world. New York is only a tiny fraction of a wider global problem, and it’s already drowning under its own waste. We’re playing a game of catch-up, Royte notes, that’s very difficult to win. Many of the people Royte meets, from landfill owners to scientists, are skeptical about what we can do to save the planet at this stage.

When she visits Fresh Kills, Royte paddles around the trash stream in a boat. As she travels through the landfill, she describes how the rivers, oceans, and seas pay for our excessive trash. For example, the waste at Fresh Kills leaks out gallons of toxic material into the nearby New York Harbor. This material includes cyanide, arsenic, and chromium. These toxic vapors infiltrate everything, from the air to the water supply.



Furthermore, we often send waste, particularly electronic waste, abroad for disassembly and disposal. The problem with this is that other countries suffer under the weight of our trash. In China, workers with no protective equipment rip apart our old electronic equipment and throw dangerous metal parts into streams and fields. There are no environmental regulations. These parts leak and erode the surrounding environment. The workers sicken and weaken. We’re slowly killing ourselves and the planet.

All that’s left for us to do is to stop throwing anything away. No amount of recycling will fix the dilemma, Royte explains. Royte highlights the problems with modern recycling programs in North America. She examines local composting initiatives and critiques them harshly. She explains that, although composting is a great idea in theory, it doesn’t work so well in practice. Animals such as raccoons frequently contaminate the compost bins and steal from them, and the bins can’t handle the trash load.

Recycling causes many environmental problems. Recycling releases toxic compounds from, for example, plastics, into the air and water supplies. It’s almost impossible to properly recycle paint cans and similar products, no matter how hard we try. Royte explains that recycling isn’t the final answer to the waste dilemma. We should simply live with less and minimize our overall carbon footprint.



Garbage Land concludes with some thoughts for the future. The most obvious conclusion is that we must change our whole approach to consumption. The less we purchase, the less we use, the less we waste. There is no definitive answer to the world’s trash problem, but we can all take steps to minimize our effect on the environment. It’s easy to buy less clothing, use less plastic packaging, and keep our electronic equipment until it stops working instead of chasing the latest product. The environment, Royte notes, will thank us for it.