a book
Wasteland
Oli Franklin · 2023 · 392 pages
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 BY THE NEW YORKER, THE GUARDIAN, and KIRKUS REVIEWS
An award-winning investigative journalist takes a deep dive into the global waste crisis, exposing the hidden world that enables our modern economy--and finds out the dirty truth behind a simple question: what really happens to what we throw away?
In Wasteland, journalist Oliver Franklin-Wallis takes us on a shocking journey inside the waste industry--the secretive multi-billion dollar world that underpins the modern economy, quietly profiting from what we leave behind. In India, he meets the waste-pickers on the front line of the plastic crisis. In the UK, he journeys down sewers to confront our oldest--and newest--waste crisis, and comes face-to-face with nuclear waste. In Ghana, he follows the after-life of our technology and explores the global export network that results in goodwill donations clogging African landfills. From an incinerator to an Oklahoma ghost-town, Franklin-Wallis travels in search of the people and companies that really handle waste--and on the way, meets the innovators and campaigners pushing for a cleaner and less wasteful future.
With this mesmerizing, thought-provoking, and occasionally terrifying investigation, Oliver Franklin-Wallis tells a new story of humanity based on what we leave behind, and along the way, he shares a blueprint for building a healthier, more sustainable world--before we're all buried in trash.
An award-winning investigative journalist takes a deep dive into the global waste crisis, exposing the hidden world that enables our modern economy--and finds out the dirty truth behind a simple question: what really happens to what we throw away?
In Wasteland, journalist Oliver Franklin-Wallis takes us on a shocking journey inside the waste industry--the secretive multi-billion dollar world that underpins the modern economy, quietly profiting from what we leave behind. In India, he meets the waste-pickers on the front line of the plastic crisis. In the UK, he journeys down sewers to confront our oldest--and newest--waste crisis, and comes face-to-face with nuclear waste. In Ghana, he follows the after-life of our technology and explores the global export network that results in goodwill donations clogging African landfills. From an incinerator to an Oklahoma ghost-town, Franklin-Wallis travels in search of the people and companies that really handle waste--and on the way, meets the innovators and campaigners pushing for a cleaner and less wasteful future.
With this mesmerizing, thought-provoking, and occasionally terrifying investigation, Oliver Franklin-Wallis tells a new story of humanity based on what we leave behind, and along the way, he shares a blueprint for building a healthier, more sustainable world--before we're all buried in trash.
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sourced from public statements
Boyan Slat
“"Wasteland by @olifranklin While many environmental books feel like they’re pushing an agenda, I appreciated the objective tone of this one. It takes the reader on a global tour of how humanity deals with its waste, from landfills to wastewater treatment plants."”↗