Donnelly, Rebecca. Total Garbage: A Messy Dive Into Trash, Waste, and Our World. Henry Holt & Co, 2023. 978-1-250-76076038-8. 156 p. $21.99. Grades 5-8.

Donnelly tackles an everyday reality: garbage, and answers questions such as: What is garbage? Where does it come from? Why do we make so much? Where does it go? What can we learn from our garbage? How bad is our garbage problem? And how can we do better? Trash is complicated, and whether it ends up in a landfill, incinerator, recycling center or compost heap, it doesn’t really go ‘away.’ Using first person plural we and and direct address (“take a look at your kitchen trash”), Donnelly establishes a friendly tone through the ordinary and unknown trash realities. Occasional line drawings by John Hendrix help to lighten the heavy load.  Along the way, readers will learn facts ranging from disgusting to simply sobering, facts like: early garbage piles in Paris were so large that troops had difficulty seeing around them, decomposing garbage produces toxic gas, recycling has not been the solution we hoped for, there are many ocean garbage ‘patches,’ planned obsolescence increases profits and trash, and much more. This book explains new terms like MSW, fatbergs, fast fashion, materials recovery facility (MRF), downcycling, middens, mudlarks and toshers, and the rag-and-doll man. The result is a complete look at garbage and ways we can confront our garbage problem.

THOUGHTS: Donnelly covers all the facts on global trash yet maintains a hopeful tone for readers, resulting in a very useful book. This title could work well with Can I Recycle This? A Guide to Better Recycling and How to Reduce Single-Use Plastics by Jennie Romer (2021).

628.4 Conservation & Environment