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
David Steiner, CEO of Waste Management, the world’s largest trash company in 2011, used to wax poetic when talking about landfills. He thought landfills would always be necessary, although he also considered futures where trash might be so valuable for a consumer economy that trash companies would be paying normal people for garbage instead of the other way around.
As one of the most important figures in the current status quo of trash management, Steiner might seem like a possible antagonist for the book (since Humes opposes the status quo). In fact, however, the section on Steiner and Waste Management is more balanced, mixing achievements with criticisms. This suggests that the author believes solving the garbage crisis will require working with the status quo, or at least understanding it.
Themes
In fact, however, despite Steiner’s utopian vision of a future where garbage is valuable, his company Waste Management actually thwarted earlier attempts to find sustainable alternatives to landfills when it lobbied aggressively to privatize American trash. The company has a strange history, going from family business to up-and-coming investment to scandal and finally rebirth.
While Humes doesn’t offer much outright criticism of Steiner and Waste Management, he highlights the company’s actions in a way that suggests it’s been hypocritical, its actions failing to match up with Steiner’s more utopian speech.
Themes
The company that would eventually become Waste Management was founded in 1893 by a Dutch immigrant in Chicago named Harm Huizenga, who later left management duties to his son-in-law Dean Buntrock. Buntrock and H. Wayne Huizenga (Harm’s nephew and an entrepreneur who would eventually help build Blockbuster Video and Auto Nation) helped expand the family business by buying other companies, turning it into Waste Management, Inc., a multi-million-dollar company.
Like Puente Hills, Waste Management also grew out of something smaller that was never intended to grow so large. All of these institutions are microcosms of the garbage crisis itself, which has grown in a similarly explosive way. The references to Blockbuster Video and Auto Nation help show how Waste Management is connected to other distinctly American businesses.
Themes
Later, in the 1990s, Waste Management was accused of illegal toxic dumping and received heavy fines. There was also a massive insider trading stock scandal where four top company executives (including Buntrock) were accused of fraud, although they settled for $25 million without admitting guilt. This scandal tanked the company’s value and allowed a smaller company called USA Waste Services to buy it (though they kept the better-known Waste Management name).
Economics continues to play a deciding role in waste management policy. Ultimately, change comes about at Waste Management not because the company was caught illegally dumping, but because fallout from that scandal and the trading scandal caused profits to go down.
Themes
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When Steiner became CEO of Waste Management in 2004, the company had already begun to shed its polluter image and attempted to remake itself as a sustainable company, using power plants to convert landfill gas to electricity. Despite this, however, Steiner and the rest of the company were more interested in evolution than revolution. They didn’t want to get rid of landfills, just to make them better—for example, by finding a way to convert trash into gasoline.
Steiner’s approach is similar to the approach taken at Puente Hills landfill. While Humes seems to admire elements of Steiner’s work, ultimately he believes that Steiner is wrong and that garbage actually does need a revolution, not just a gradual evolution.
Themes
During the 1970s and the 1980s, trash and pollution became a growing political problem. Some topics were divisive: for example, Jimmy Carter started a federally backed program for renewable energy that was promptly shut down by Ronald Reagan. Others, like the Endangered Species Act, received broad bipartisan support. In California in particular, the idea of turning waste into energy fell into the latter category of issues, getting support from across the political spectrum, at least in theory.
Though environmentalism has often been a divisive political issue, Humes makes the argument that it doesn’t have to be that way. He points out that some issues like endangered animals are broadly popular and then pivots to suggesting that perhaps solving the garbage crisis could be one of those issues, too.
Themes
In the 1980s, the plans to expand the landfill that became the modern Puente Hills initially met fierce resistance, particularly from people who lived nearby. In the end, the expansion of the Puente Hills landfill got approval through the year 1993, and it was expected that by then the landfill part of Puente Hills would be obsolete, as part of California’s ambitious waste-to-energy plans.
Humes resists the idea that massive landfills like Puente Hills are inevitable. Here, he shows how Puente Hills itself almost got shut down before it could take on its gargantuan new form. By showing that landfills aren’t inevitable, Humes hopes to prove that other possibilities could also be viable.
Themes
Despite the ambitions and seemingly good intentions that went into the Puente Hills landfill, it never became the massive waste-to-energy plant that some had envisioned. The smokestacks of the landfill in particular (which were needed for energy conversion) faced backlash at every stage, both for the smoke’s environmental impact and for its impact on local residential areas. As a compromise, politicians abandoned the idea of Puente Hills as a waste-to-energy facility and turned it into a place for dumping garbage instead of burning it.
Though later sections of the book will look into the possible benefits of waste-to-energy plants, this section looks at some of the very real downsides. The question, however, is whether the long-term effects of the current Puente Hills landfill might be just as bad if not worse than the proposed waste-to-energy plant.
Themes
Opponents of the smokestacks at Puente Hills didn’t necessarily oppose waste-to-energy altogether; they just wanted it done in a more remote location. That didn’t happen, however, and though residents near Puente Hills scored a minor victory, they soon faced another problem when the heaps of unburned trash in the landfill began to pile up. The convenient location of Puente Hills helped it semi-accidentally become the cheapest place in California to dump trash, and its size grew as a result.
Again, a short-term waste management victory leads to unforeseen long-term consequences. This section emphasizes how important it is to be thoughtful and plan ahead when developing waste management policies, since “temporary” fixes have a habit of growing into long-running institutions.
Themes
Efforts to move Puente Hills stalled, largely because it would have been so expensive to ship trash even a short distance further. Many in Los Angeles grappled with a question—“Isn’t there something better we can do with, or about, our trash?”—but answers remained elusive.
Humes shows how people with good intentions can be frustrated by a lack of direction. Though his book argues that there are solutions to the garbage crisis, he acknowledges the feelings of hopelessness that so much trash can create.
Themes
Big Mike estimated that Puente Hills would stop taking trash in 2013 or shortly after, but the landfill wouldn’t go anywhere: it’d just enter its “Terminal Phase.” In theory, the landfill would be permanently sealed and converted back into usable land like roads and parks, but examples elsewhere in the U.S. have shown that “closed” landfills often require maintenance more or less indefinitely.
This section relates back to Steiner’s utopian promises at the beginning of the chapter. Ultimately, it shows how many of the current status quo promises—that landfills can simply be closed up and turned back into usable land—are mostly empty and based on wishful thinking.
Themes
