Wasteland

Reviews

'A travelogue around dumps, scrapyards, disposal and recycling facilities, from giant machines that shred TVs and other electronic devices to vast landfill sites in India: the all-too-solid hinterlands of our obsession with buying and throwing away so much stuff' ‘The book comes alive in its descriptions of people and places ... Franklin-Wallis writes stylishly about ugly things ... interesting and sobering ... His book should prompt serious discussion in boardrooms and parliaments’  'Just as everything we consume comes from somewhere on earth, so too everything we produce must go somewhere on earth – even if we don't want to think about it. This book compels us to. A fascinating, deeply researched and hugely important exposé of what happens to the stuff we no longer want, and the social and environmental cost of dealing with it. Revelatory, thoughtful and honest about our complex relationship with waste.' ‘Waste is a serious problem and also a curiously fascinating one. In this brilliant book, Franklin-Wallis goes into it up to his neck – so we don’t have to! The result is a gripping read that will anger as much as it fascinates. There’s lots we can all do to help, but he’s right to conclude that it’s government and business who really have to step up, and clean up’ ‘This is an incredible journey into the world of rubbish, full of fascinating characters and mind-bending facts. My relationship with garbage is never going to be the same’ ‘An urgent, probing and endlessly interesting investigation into our staggering wastefulness and the environmental crisis this is creating right under our noses. In Wasteland, Oliver Franklin-Walls offers us a behind the scenes guide to the processing plants, rubbish tips and refuse mountains that lurk in our back yards; the thundering machinery and skilled workers who strive tirelessly to relieve us of the spoils of our own profligacy. As he does so, he turns up rare treasures and unexpected beauties amid the junk and the mess. Tirelessly reported, it is a book both horrifying in its implications and gleefully hair-raising in the way it is told’ ‘Superb. Oliver Franklin-Wallis’ deep dive into our wasteful ways and dirty histories turns up a story that gleams with insight and promise. An urgent and vividly told exploration of the underside of modern life, Wasteland also reveals what a better future could look like. You'll never see trash the same way again’ ‘Wise, honest and unsparing, Wasteland will open your eyes to the reality of our throwaway society’ ‘[An] eye-opening investigation into the global waste crisis and recycling industry’ With his investigative chops and contagious curiosity, Oliver Franklin-Wallis has cracked wide a dozen hidden, jaw-dropping worlds . . . Yet despite its grim revelations, the book offers hope. For we can’t begin to make things right until we understand the nuanced realities of what is wrong. Wasteland is compelling, smart, fair, often funny, always interesting, and just very important. Truly, it’s the most impressive nonfiction I’ve read in quite some time’  ‘Shocking but essential reading’

  'Sometimes it seems as if our main role as humans is to enjoy shiny things for a little while until they become discarded things. This is a fascinating and comprehensive tour of the second half of that equation – the tossed-out usually gets a thousandth the attention of the not-yet-purchased, but Oliver Franklin-Wallis does his best to redress that balance, in a book that wills you see the world quite differently than you did before'

 

  ‘[A] scary reflection of our overconsumption and failure to deal with its impact. . . completely engrossing. . . it is the wake-up call we need to do better’
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