Paperback, 368 pages
English language
Published Sept. 1, 2000 by Owl Books.
Informative history of US household waste, from reuse to rag & bone collectors to railroad mail-order consumption and the invention of disposable single-use products, as well as WWII material collection & recycling and sanitary landfills.
While it draws from many of the same sources as in Strasser's other work, this is a unique work of scholarship that examines both the way people thought of reuse and disposability over the centuries and the genesis of the waste disposal and recycling industries. All of this gets tangled up in changing consumer culture, business models, and world events that interact in ways that profoundly alter older habits of material scarcity and non-existent waste removal infrastructure. Highly recommend
While it draws from many of the same sources as in Strasser's other work, this is a unique work of scholarship that examines both the way people thought of reuse and disposability over the centuries and the genesis of the waste disposal and recycling industries. All of this gets tangled up in changing consumer culture, business models, and world events that interact in ways that profoundly alter older habits of material scarcity and non-existent waste removal infrastructure. Highly recommend
