Garbology Character Analysis

J. Gordon Lippincott

J. Gordon Lippincott was an advertising consultant who was involved in the creation of some of the most recognizable American branding and advertising, including the Campbell’s soup label, the Chrysler logo, the Betty Crocker spoon… read analysis of J. Gordon Lippincott

George E. Waring

George E. Waring was the man appointed in the early twentieth century to help tackle New York City’s massive waste and sanitation problems. A former Civil War colonel who asked his employees to salute him… read analysis of George E. Waring

Bill Rathje

Bill Rathje was arguably the first “garbologist,” and he earned this title by taking a research approach to trash that borrowed techniques from more well-established disciplines like archaeology. In 1973, Rathje founded the Garbage Project… read analysis of Bill Rathje

Mike Speiser (Big Mike)

Mike Speiser was a worker at the Puente Hills landfill, which was located outside of Los Angeles. Puente Hills was one of the biggest, most technologically advanced landfills in the world, even offering tours to… read analysis of Mike Speiser (Big Mike)

Mary Crowley

Mary Crowley was a teacher who became a sea captain and dedicated her life to attempting to solve the trash problem in the Pacific Ocean. Her nonprofit, called the Kaisei Project (after the Japanese for… read analysis of Mary Crowley

Tim Pritchard

Tim Pritchard was a Seattle resident with no special connection to garbage until he began to volunteer with MIT’s Trash Track, a program that tracked trash by using GPS technology taken from recycled cell phones… read analysis of Tim Pritchard

Andy Keller

Andy Keller was the founder of ChicoBag, a startup based around a reusable grocery bag that represented one of the earliest efforts in the U.S. to push back against the proliferation of plastic bags. Keller… read analysis of Andy Keller

Miriam Goldstein

Miriam Goldstein was an ocean scientist who came from a younger generation than Mary Crowley, and who was more of a scientific insider than Crowley. Goldstein and her colleagues studied the Pacific Garbage Patch… read analysis of Miriam Goldstein

David Steiner

David Steiner was the CEO of Waste Management, the largest garbage company in the U.S. Before Steiner’s time as CEO, Waste Management had a bad reputation, as it was caught polluting and illegally dumping during… read analysis of David Steiner

Deborah Munk

Deborah Munk helped run the artist-in-residence program at a San Francisco garbage dump, which attracted ambitious artists like Niki Ulehla. Though the artist-in-residence program started in the 1990s as a novelty, it quickly proved… read analysis of Deborah Munk

Bea Johnson

Bea Johnson was an au pair from France who went on to found her own company focused on personal sustainability. After her family was temporarily forced to live in a small apartment, she decided she… read analysis of Bea Johnson

Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer

Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer were two Princeton students who collaborated to found TerraCycle, a company that used worms to recycle food waste into fertilizer. The project expanded from a business contest entry into a… read analysis of Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer

Vance Packard

Vance Packard was a contemporary of the advertising consultant J. Gordon Lippincott, and at the time, he was perhaps the most vocal and widely read critic of the growth of consumerism across the U.S… read analysis of Vance Packard

Charles Moore

Charles Moore was an ocean researcher who, like Mary Crowley, took an interest in pollution in Pacific waters. In 1997, Moore avoided conventional sailing wisdom and deliberately sailed into the doldrums (the areas with… read analysis of Charles Moore

Sheli Smith

Sheli Smith was a student of foundational garbologist Bill Rathje. She helped expand upon his work, focusing particularly on education and public awareness through a school program that started local but quickly expanded to… read analysis of Sheli Smith

Nickolas Themelis

Nickolas Themelis was a prominent waste-to-energy advocate. Like many waste-to-energy advocates, he believed that turning old trash into energy was the best option from a practical, environmental, and economic perspective. Like Andy Keller and the… read analysis of Nickolas Themelis

The Gastons

The Gastons were a family on the South Side of Chicago who, in 2010, had to be literally rescued from all the trash in their home because they were compulsive hoarders. Though their situation might… read analysis of The Gastons

Minor Characters

Harm Huizenga

Harm Huizenga was a Dutch immigrant in Chicago who founded the company that would eventually become Waste Management, though in his time, it was just a small family-run business. He eventually left the business to his son-in-law, Dean Buntrock, and his nephew H. Wayne Huizenga.

Dean Buntrock

Together with H. Wayne Huizenga, Dean Buntrock was responsible for taking a small family-run business founded by Harm Huizenga and, by acquiring other companies, turning it into the multimillion-dollar company Waste Management, the leading U.S. garbage company.

H. Wayne Huizenga

Working with Dean Buntrock, H. Wayne Huizenga helped take his uncle Harm Huizenga’s family business and turn it into the multimillion-dollar Waste Management, the leading U.S. garbage company.

Niki Ulehla

Niki Ulehla was an artist at a San Francisco garbage dump’s unconventional but highly successful artist-in-residence program. Ulehla was working on a piece inspired by Dante’s Inferno.

Zhang Yin

Zhang Yin was China’s first female billionaire; she achieved this by finding a way to export the U.S.’s trash to China. Her experience shows not only the volume of trash generated by the United States, but also the huge amounts of money involved in managing waste.

Garbology Characters