Waste, by Kate O’Neill
Review by Dave Gamrath

One-liner:  In her book Waste, Berkley professor Kate O’Neill provides an in-depth look at the many facets of the stuff we are forever trying to throw away.

Book Review: 

We humans use a lot of resources, and in the process, create a lot of waste – far more than you might imagine.  In her book Waste, Berkley professor Kate O’Neill provides a deep look at all the stuff that gets tossed.  Some of what she reports is surprising, some scary, and much of it pretty damn sad.

Technically speaking, waste is what we do not want, or fail to use.  But it’s also more than that.  Waste is a global resource, a livelihood, and a source of risk – to our health, the environment, and to waste workers.  Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have created 30 trillion tons of waste.  We are running out of space to put waste, and we will not reach “peak waste” until the next century.  As long as it’s cheap and easy to impose our waste on others living thousands of miles away, technology will not solve our waste problems. 

There are many different streams of waste, including municipal, industrial, agriculture, forestry, construction, mining, hazardous and nuclear waste.  Industrial waste is 18 times greater than municipal waste.  Globally, the largest waste category is green waste, including food waste, at 44%.  

O’Neill describes the dynamic global waste economy.  Globally, there are over 20 million informal waste workers.  At many huge global dumpsites, thousands of “waste pickers” living amongst the trash.  These workers face extreme health hazards, including toxins, smoke and chemicals. 

Discarded electronics are a cornerstone of the global waste economy.  Workers dismantle old electronics for valuable metals, while facing exposure to mercury, lead and other toxins.  A surprisingly large amount of e-wastes gets refurbished and resold, allowing many in the developing world to afford technology.  However, built-in obsolescence in non-repairable gadgets shorten product life and make refurbishing extremely hard, adding to our waste problem.  O’Neill argues that new policies to make manufacturers responsible for the entire lifecycle of their products, including take-back, recycling and final disposal, are very much needed. 

Food waste is a growing problem.  Waste occurs all through the food chain.  Roughly one-third of food produced for humans is wasted, valued at close to $1 trillion dollars a year.  Fruits and vegetables have the highest waste percentages, at over 50% in the US.  Also, 20% of meat and dairy, and 35% of fish are wasted.  Over one quarter of the world’s agricultural land produces food waste.  A tremendous amount of fresh water is wasted, and the carbon footprint of wasted food is huge.  Only 3% of food waste gets composted. 

This really surprised me:  date labels are the most common reason people toss food.  These labels are voluntary and meant as an indicator of flavor as much as spoilage.  Labels are not standardized, and can be very confusing to consumers.  O’Neill stresses that changing date labels would greatly help avoiding food waste.

The plastics industry touts its role in preventing food waste.  Yet, much of the most difficult to recycle plastic comes in the form of food packaging, especially soft films and plastic bags.

Plastics have flooded the oceans and worked their way into our bloodstream.  Plastic products take anywhere from 5 to 1,000 years to breakdown, and even then, the resulting microplastics basically last forever.  In the Pacific Ocean, in an area about twice the size of Texas, lies a pool of at least 79,000 tons of floating plastic. 

In 2017 the UN declared plastics in the oceans a planetary crisis.  Some actions are being taken, but not nearly enough.  O’Neill discusses different solutions, such as worldwide bans and restrictions for single-use plastics, or the quest for alternatives and substitutes.  But replacing plastics is going to be extremely hard.  Clearly people like to use plastics, and old habits are hard to break.  Plus, Big Business produce plastics, including chemical companies, such as Dow and DuPont, and oil companies such as Exxon.  These highly-polluting industries have the deep pockets to fight off change that would lower their profits. 

Deviously, it was the plastics industry that lobbied hard for the labeling system we see on the bottom of plastics, numbering from 1 to 7.  Only those labeled 1 and 2 are easily recycled.  The others likely won’t ever get recycled, yet us consumers feel good when we toss them into our recycle bin, not realizing they are effectively contaminating the recycle and heading for a landfill.  We love plastics.  Over 300 million tons of plastic waste are generated annually. 

In 2018, China changed its policy and prohibited imports of plastic waste, siting a new policy of “no more foreign garbage.”  This has caused a problem for American recyclers.  Currently, in the US, less than 10% of plastic is recycled.  About 15% is incinerated, and the remaining 75% goes to landfills.  Simply put, recycling of plastics isn’t working.  The real solution is developing substitutes and alternatives to fossil fuel-based plastics of all kinds. 

O’Neill concludes here book with some optimism, including describing many governance innovations and experiments currently in-work, albeit with only marginal success.  As consumers, O’Neill provides us several options.  We can modify our consumption habits to reduce waste.  We can keep a close eye on what’s happening within our government, and not let Big Business prohibit governmental action to reduce waste and restrict single-use plastics.  We can lobby to allow for electronic devices to be repaired.  “Zero waste” communities have succeeded in a few places, proving we can do it.  But like most everything, changing habits will take time and effort from us all.

Although a bit of an academic read, reading Waste is definitely not a waste of time. 

Reviewer Rating of Book: 

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