Uncovering a dirty business as plastics come at an unstainable cost to the environment. They are a ticking time bomb, so writes Alexander Clapp in his latest book ‘Waste Wars’ published on 25 February.
In this amazing expose of how and why, for the last forty years, our rubbish has developed a massive global black market he is a literal and figurative muckraker, exploring a slew of astonishing trash-related topics. Clapp, a journalist based in Athens, unearths rubbish and waste in Turkey, Ghana, Java, and Guatemala, which, he writes, “boast[s] a bleak history as the serial target of toxic waste dumping by US cities and corporations.” Not surprisingly he reveals that the United States exports much of the world’s rubbish.
The European Union doesn’t come off looking too good, either. “At least as much plastic was getting jettisoned out of the European Union, and he points out that much of the plastic that “Germans claimed was getting ‘recycled’ was in fact getting shipped to the far side of the world, where its true fate was far from clear.” In uncovering a dirty business Clapp’s book reveals dumps and landfills around the world are overflowing, which can have devastating consequences especially for the poorest nations of the world. The millions of tonnes of rubbish generated every day have given rise to waste wars, cons and cover ups across thousands of miles and multiple oceans. And few of us have any idea they’re happening.
The author is loath to end on a hopeful note, but he tells of Izzettin Akman, a farmer in Turkey whose oranges and lemons are threatened by tons of rubbish that is dumped—and set on fire—near his crops. The farmer takes to pursuing the garbage trucks in his pickup—“a lonesome sheriff against a system of globe-spanning waste mismanagement,” Clapp writes. “I’ll keep following the trucks until they stop coming,” Akman says. “Or until the world stops sending them.”
An edited extract of Clapp’s book was included in The Guardian’s ‘The long read‘ on 18 February. He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books, The New York Times, and The Economist, among other publications.
Locally, the Settle and Gigglewick Plastic Free Community Steering Group, supported by ACE, received accreditation from Surfers Against Sewage on the 19th February. The campaign is supported by Settle Town Council and Giggleswick Parish Council.
You can also read more about what our Food Group is doing here.