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Junkyard Planet
Book

Junkyard Planet

Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade

Adam Minter
Bloomsbury Press, 2013

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Eloquent
  • Hot Topic

Recommendation

Adam Minter, a Shanghai-based journalist and son of a scrapyard owner, tours the world’s waste “grubbing” hot spots to provide a savvy view of the processes, triumphs and failures of the scrap industry. He focuses mainly on recycling metals, but also covers plastics and the contentious topic of “e-waste.” His research highlights the importance of profit in the chain of waste-management and recycling. Some of the worst health and environmental side-effects relate directly to recycling cheap plastics, a business with minuscule margins. In contrast, profitable metal recycling is a worldwide “green success.” getAbstract recommends this ecological travelogue to those seeking to understand the global impact – and opportunities – of booming consumption and the resulting disposal of products. The recycling picture is more complex than you might think, given the mix of materials, motives and morals involved.

Take-Aways

  • Environmentally, recycling is a poor “third-best option” after reduction and reuse.
  • “Harvesting” metals from old electronics can be an unsanitary, “dirty” business, but is less polluting and resource-hungry than mining and drilling.
  • The US scrap-metal industry has boomed since the 1980s, growing as demand from China grew.

About the Author

Southeast Asia-based journalist Adam Minter writes for Bloomberg View and for recycling-oriented publications such as Scrap and Recycling International.

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