Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash

Journalist Clapp debuts with a rollicking deep dive into the absurdities and intricacies of the global trash trade. In the 1970s, Western countries began exporting their toxic waste to developing nations; Clapp chronicles how, despite these nations having since banded together to end the toxic waste trade, it has continued to flourish under the guise of recycling. In Ghana, Clapp visits Agbogbloshie, a town where discarded electronics “donated” by Westerners are stripped for parts in hazardous and backbreaking work (which is actually for the Westerners’ benefit—it prevents scammers from accessing their information). In Turkey, Clapp meets with the family of a young man who perished in the shipbreaking trade, which strips old cruise ships for parts (the steel contributes to Turkey's construction trade, a key source of power for President Erdoğan’s rule). In Indonesia, Clapp discusses how the country’s robust paper recycling program was forced by a complex series of machinations to take on U.S. plastic waste, and profiles farmers who’ve turned to trading plastic, which is burned as fuel. Clapp can veer into a provocatively melodramatic tone (“I had flown to Indonesia to witness the lunatic phenomenon of ‘trash towns’ ”), but he also plainly states the cruel ironies facing his interviewees (one Agbogbloshie worker engaged in the dangerous trade of burning e-waste tells Clapp, “I pray to God every day to stop the burning. But for now I need it”). It’s a stirring and dogged investigation. (Feb.)