Seas the Day! - Book of the Month

Each month in 2007, The Ocean Project will highlight a book focused on our blue planet or environmental sustainability. Books for all age groups will be covered, non-fiction and fiction, prose and poetry. If you have a suggestion, please let us know.

Hooked: Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish Garbage Land: On The Secret Trail Of Trash
by Elizabeth Royte

Is there a trash fairy? On trash day people put their garbage on the curb and poof, it’s gone the following morning! Elizabeth Royte investigates this modern day phenomenon in her book, Garbage Land. She begins her journey by tracking her trash to her household trash bins, cataloging everything, then to the garbage truck, and then to the local landfill or dump, and beyond. She soon realizes that the dumps so called "state of the art" facilities were anything but. Royte then goes for a ride with her recyclables, and discovers their facilities aren’t much better. For months she digs through her family’s trash and keeps track of all that leaves the house, to find how many pounds her family is responsible for. Determined to lessen her family`s impact she starts composting and obsessively monitors what her family consumes, down to a tissue. Royte follows her trash from Brooklyn, NY and sees how far it actually goes. As she says, "Everything ends up somewhere."

Through her trash investigation she realizes it’s not all about the treatment of trash and recycling, but about being a conscious consumer and not creating excessive waste in the first place. Garbage Land exposes the harsh truth that there is no garbage fairy as many would like to believe, and that it all catches up with us at some point.

The Earth (including our ocean) is not a limitless garbage dump, and, as she says, humankind will be held accountable for our trash sooner or later: "We can recycle and compost as much as we want, but the total waste stream continues to grow and we`ll never escape our own mess… if we don`t wake up and make the connection between the economy and the environment the planet will eventually do it for us, and it won’t be pretty".

Find out how you can help do your part at the Seas the Day website.
If you are interested in reading this book but also want to be a conscious consumer, please visit your local library and check it out.
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