A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK
A 2023 BOOK OF THE YEAR IN  THE  GUARDIAN  AND THE  NEW YORKER

‘Captivating’  Literary Review
‘Powerful’  New Scientist
‘Impressive’  Spectator
‘Important’  Financial Times

Waste is everywhere. It’s clogging our rivers and littering our streets. The Pacific Ocean contains a great garbage patch three times the size of France. Our junk is even orbiting the earth. No wonder there are microplastics in our bloodstreams.

Waste, a problem we’ve ignored for too long, is now a global crisis – and it’s getting worse.

From the landfills of New Delhi, to the second-hand clothing markets of Ghana and the overflowing sewers of Britain, join Oliver Franklin-Wallis as he reveals the dirty truth about the global waste industry.

In this eye-opening and ultimately hopeful book, he meets some of the heroic people trying to make a difference and explains precisely how we can create a better, less wasteful world.

‘An incredible journey into the world of rubbish, full of fascinating characters and mind-bending facts’ Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland
 
‘Urgent, probing and endlessly interesting’ Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment

‘A  fascinating, deeply researched and hugely important exposé of what happens to the stuff  we no longer want, and the social and environmental cost of dealing with it’ Gaia Vince  

‘Compelling, smart, fair, often funny, always interesting, and just very important’ Mary Roach, author of Stiff

‘There are stories in all our discarded things: who made them, what they meant to a person before they were thrown away. In the end, it all ends up in the same place – the endless ingenuity of humanity in one filthy, fascinating mass.’
 
When we throw things ‘away’, what does that actually mean? Where does it go, and who deals with it when it gets there? In Wasteland, award-winning journalist Oliver Franklin-Wallis takes us on an eye-opening journey through the global waste industry. From the mountainous landfills of New Delhi to Britain’s overflowing sewers, from hollowed-out mining towns in the USA to Ghana’s flooded second-hand markets, we meet the people on the frontline of our waste crisis – both those being exploited, and those determined to make a difference. On the way, we discover the corporate greenwashing that started the recycling movement; the dark truth behind our second-hand donations; and come face to face with the 10,000-year legacy of our nuclear waste.
 
Both shocking and hopeful, Wasteland is the timely and ultimately human story at the heart of an urgent global issue.