Outsmart Waste: The Modern Idea of Garbage and How to Think Our Way Out of It [Paperback]

Ever-expanding landfills, ocean gyres filled with floating plastic mush, endangered wildlife. Our garbage has become a massive and exponentially growing problem in modern society. Eco-entrepreneur Tom Szaky explores why this crisis exists and explains how can we solve it by eliminating the very idea of garbage. To outsmart waste, he says, we first have to understand it, then change how we create it, and finally rethink what we do with it.

By mimicking nature and focusing on the value inherent in our by-products, we can transform the waste we can’t avoid creating from useless trash to a useful resource. Szaky demonstrates that there is value in every kind of garbage, from used chewing gum to juice pouches to cigarette butts. After reading this mind-expanding book, you will never think about garbage the same way again.Introduction: The unique nature of garbage
Chapter 1: Where the modern idea of garbage came from
Chapter 2: The role of the individual purchase
Chapter 3: Our primary global solution to waste: bury it
Chapter 4: The energy inherent in our waste
Chapter 5: The hierarchy of waste
Chapter 6: The art of upcycling
Chapter 7: The science of recycling
Chapter 8: The critical element of separation
Chapter 9: The economics of outsmarting waste
Conclusion: Waste is over! (if you want it)
Notes
Index
About Tom Szaky
About TerraCycle“Tom illuminates pathways to finding ‘gold in garbage heaps’… Thanks to this book, I can no longer acquire and discard unconsciously, and as I’ve long said, change begins with awareness.”
—From the foreword by Deepak Chopra

“The waste industry is ripe for massive innovation and change. It takes creative minds and people with the courage to knock down doors and go around walls to be the spark. Tom is that.”
—Ron Gonen, New York City Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling, and Sustainabls5