Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Garbology, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Hidden Costs of Waste
Consumerism vs. Conservation
The Power of Individuals
Money and Politics
Summary
Analysis
In 2011, Bea Johnson was a typical resident of the San Francisco suburbs who didn’t see her family’s habits as particularly wasteful. When she moved from a big house to a smaller apartment that was supposed to only be temporary, however, she realized just how many of her possessions were unnecessary. Johnson told her husband she wanted to try to keep living a more pared-down life. They ended up buying a much smaller home, and while their decision was better for the environment, it also meant they had more money to spend on other things.
At first, Johnson’s story may seem like another in the vein of Keller’s or the TerraCycle partners. While it does follow the same broad patterns of a person realizing the impact of waste for the first time and subsequently feeling motivated to do something, Johnson’s story also has some unique elements that made the process different for her.
Themes
Johnson was French and originally came to the U.S. as an au pair. Eventually, she founded a company called Be Simple that helped people declutter their homes. Many people who visited Johnson’s new home were surprised and didn’t understand it. The Johnson family set limits on what they could buy and how much of it—for example, a limit on clothes to buy each year. While it might sound time-consuming, Johnson found that it actually freed up time for her.
Johnson’s French background perhaps predisposes her to bring an outside perspective to U.S. culture, showing that there is value in looking past preconceived ideas. The shock that people experience in Johnson’s home reveals how many people have a negative reaction to having their own assumptions challenged.
Themes
When Johnson’s home appeared in a magazine photo spread, touted as a “Zero Waste Home,” it provoked strong reactions. While many were inspired by the photos, a minority criticized Johnson. Some pointed out substantial issues (her family’s annual carbon-heavy flights to France), while others got defensive about practices they simply found strange (such as Johnson’s decision to digitize her children’s artwork, then recycle the hard copies). Johnson admitted that she wasn’t perfect but wondered why her lifestyle made so many people angry.
Like many solutions to the trash crisis, the ones offered by Johnson were imperfect and, in some cases, only replaced old problems with even worse new ones. Nevertheless, Humes argues that on the whole, there was a lot of value to what Johnson did and that the negative reactions to her work revealed more about how defensive people get when forced to consider that their own beliefs may be flawed.
Themes
Many have asked Johnson if it’s possible for “ordinary” people to make a difference. While some individual environmentalists have made a big difference and drawn praise for their efforts to clean up trash, Johnson seemed to face resistance because she was asking people to look at internal trash problems instead of external ones. Johnson remained optimistic and kept seeing small signs of progress like the growing acceptance of reusable store bags.
While Humes chronicles the difficulties of reform in detail, Garbology argues strongly for the possibility of individuals to make real change in their communities or even the world. For this reason, the story of Johnson is triumphant because it shows how people can change their own lives in order to help bring about a larger culture shift—and perhaps finally bring about a decline in consumerism.
Themes
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