Resisting Garbage

The Politics of Waste Management in American Cities

De: Lily Baum Pollans

Narrado por: Theresa Bakken

Resisting Garbage presents a new approach to understanding practices of waste removal and recycling in American cities, one that is grounded in the close observation of case studies while being broadly applicable to many American cities today.

Most current waste practices in the United States, Lily Baum Pollans argues, prioritize sanitation and efficiency while allowing limited post-consumer recycling as a way to quell consumers’ environmental anxiety. After setting out the contours of this “weak recycling waste regime,” Pollans zooms in on the very different waste management stories of Seattle and Boston over the last 40 years. While Boston’s local politics resulted in a waste-export program with minimal recycling, Seattle created new frameworks for thinking about consumption, disposal, and the roles that local governments and ordinary people can play as partners in a project of resource stewardship. By exploring how these two approaches have played out at the national level, Resisting Garbage provides new avenues for evaluating municipal action and fostering practices that will create environmentally meaningful change.

The book is published by University of Nebraska Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2021 University of Texas Press (P)2022 Redwood Audiobooks

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Important work...offers a defiant way forward..." (Samantha MacBride, author of Recycling Reconsidered)

"With this book, recycling is born anew...An essential read." (Joshua O. Reno, author of Military Waste)

"All will find something to learn from this book." (Jordan Howell, Rowan University)