This book was published in 2012, so a few of the facts in it are now out of date. There's been a massive change in China's policy of importing American trash and recycling, and I think the numbers for waste and pollution production overall are now even higher than they were 7 years ago. However, this is a still very readable and informative book. Humes has won multiple Pulitzers for his writing- he's very good at focusing each chapter on a specific person and their relationship with/battle against trash. This includes a worker at Puente Hills, the largest landfill in the US, serving the LA area; the CEO of Waste Management, Inc; two different scientists studying ocean plastic; a Seattle resident helping out with an MIT based study tracking how far trash travels before it reaches a landfill (often hundreds or even thousands of miles); an archaeologist excavating trash to study it; several artists participating in the artist residency program at San Francisco's main trash hub; the founder of ChicoBag, an early reusable bag company; the founder of TerraCycle and more. It is hopeful to read about so many smart people who have been working on and studying trash, recycling and plastics for decades; but discouraging to learn how deeply messed up and unsustainable our systems for waste are. It's a problem beyond the scope of any one person- one that we must ALL begin to take personally before we are all buried under mountains of our own waste.