Garbology

by

Edward Humes

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Themes and Colors
Hidden Costs of Waste Theme Icon
Consumerism vs. Conservation Theme Icon
The Power of Individuals Theme Icon
Money and Politics Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Garbology, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Power of Individuals Theme Icon

In Edward Humes’s Garbology, one of the biggest problems that trash reformers face is that their opponents are often large corporations with a lot of money and political influence. The plastic bag industry alone is worth billions of dollars, and it employs teams of lobbyists and public relations experts who can wield major influence with politicians and even the general public. Against such powerful opposition, it would be easy to get discouraged, but Humes argues that, in fact, individuals have a lot of power to change how the U.S. handles its trash. Tim Pritchard, for example, was just a regular Seattle resident, but his knowledge of local neighborhoods made him an invaluable volunteer for the MIT-based Trash Track program, which allowed researchers to follow garbage’s path with unprecedented accuracy. Similarly, Andy Keller, Tom Szaky, Jon Beyer, and Bea Johnson were all just regular individuals before they founded companies that directly challenged the prevailing ideas about trash in the U.S. These companies, while not large enough to compete directly with the biggest American polluters, nevertheless often grew large enough to threaten them in other ways. The negative responses that these start-ups received, sometimes in the form of lawsuits, often had the opposite effect and unintentionally boosted the profiles of the smaller companies. While none of the people profiled in the book worked alone—they were always part of teams or communities—they nevertheless made quantifiable impacts through their own efforts. When Humes ends Garbology with a call for readers to submit their own sustainability suggestions, the message is clear: no one is too small to get involved with fixing the U.S.’s trash problem. In his book, Humes acknowledges the challenges trash reformers face, particularly from better-funded opponents, but he remains optimistic that reform is possible and that sometimes all it takes is one motivated person.

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The Power of Individuals Quotes in Garbology

Below you will find the important quotes in Garbology related to the theme of The Power of Individuals.
Chapter 2 Quotes

The job of cleaning up New York then fell to Colonel George E. Waring, a Civil War veteran who, before his military service, had worked as the city engineer responsible for reclaiming the swampland that would become New York’s Central Park. Waring had supervised the design of a drainage system that created the park’s famously scenic lakes and ponds while leaving the rest of it dry. He had gone on to engineer an affordable and efficient dual sewer and drainage system for Memphis that kept storm runoff and septic waste separate. This protected the city water supply from contamination, ending almost overnight the cholera and other waterborne epidemics that had beset “The River City” for decades. Reforming New York’s sanitation department seemed a natural fit for this leading sanitation engineer of the day, who harrumphed into office asserting that he wished to be called “Colonel,” not “Commissioner,” throughout his tenure. His workers were required to salute.

Related Characters: George E. Waring
Page Number: 39
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

His life’s work, like that of the marketing and design industries he helped create and lead, was dedicated to preventing that from happening, to erase thrift as a quintessential American virtue, and replace it with conspicuous consumption powered by a kind of magical thinking, in which the well would never go dry, the bubble would never burst, oil and all forms of energy would grow cheaper and more plentiful with time, and the landfill would never fill up.

Related Characters: J. Gordon Lippincott
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

But finding these big pieces of ocean trash was not the main source of Crowley’s mounting despair, though she has known these waters for nearly forty years and sailed here back when they were truly blank and pristine and breathtaking. She knows this sort of trash is a huge problem, entangling and killing more than one hundred thousand marine mammals and an even larger number of seabirds—no one knows for sure how many. But what really alarmed her this day wasn’t the trash she could see. It was what she couldn’t see that troubled her, after the bottles, cups and other bobbing trash had been hauled out, and the mirror of water and foam appeared deep blue and clear, flashing by beneath sun and pale sky as she stared down from the railing.

Related Characters: Mary Crowley
Related Symbols: 102 Tons
Page Number: 98
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

She tends to see the state of the sea as the ultimate in societal heedlessness—an unintended and untended lab experiment run wild, in which the world finds out just what happens when we dump fifty years’ worth of plastic into the ocean. Now, Goldstein says, it’s time to assess the damage and figure out where to go from here.

Related Characters: Mary Crowley, Miriam Goldstein
Page Number: 116
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

At fifty years old, Pritchard was a natural for Trash Track. He’d been working to green himself for years, knocking his personal trash footprint way below the 102-ton legacy. He pegs his trash output at a single paper grocery bagful a month, recyclables included, though he qualifies this achievement by saying he’s single and travels often for work, which cuts down his trips to the home trash can and recycling bin.

Related Characters: Tim Pritchard
Related Symbols: 102 Tons
Page Number: 133
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

He is the world’s first garbologist, and his work uncovered just how poor an understanding we have of our own waste.

Related Characters: Bill Rathje
Page Number: 144
Explanation and Analysis:

Garbology makes it possible for a student to go beyond thinking about saving the world, and actually doing it. It’s within their power to make a difference.

Related Characters: Bill Rathje , Sheli Smith
Related Symbols: 102 Tons
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

The artist-in-residence program at the San Francisco dump—insiders use the acronym AIR—started back in 1990 as a Southside San Francisco oddity planted a few miles from the airport near the old Cow Palace arena. It has evolved into an unlikely San Francisco icon, frequently copied but outlasting all imitators.

Related Characters: Deborah Munk, Niki Ulehla
Page Number: 171
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Prior to that moment, he had not thought of those handy-dandy filmy white grocery bags as any sort of problem. They were so thin, so light, he hadn’t really given them a thought. But their footprint seemed magnified now by their dramatic presence in the landfill.

Related Characters: Andy Keller
Related Symbols: 102 Tons
Page Number: 188
Explanation and Analysis:

TerraCycle, a New Jersey company that has become a leader in “upcycling,” faced a similar, potentially fatal attack from a larger, richer, established rival just as it was getting traction in the marketplace. Its experience would provide a model for Keller as he struggled to survive what he now calls “The Plastic Bag Wars.”

Related Characters: Andy Keller, Deborah Munk, Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer
Page Number: 204
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

That’s when Bea Johnson finally got it: There’s power in putting things down instead of putting them in your shopping cart. There’s power in saying no—the power to change a family’s life and fortune. Maybe a community’s. Maybe a whole country’s.

Related Characters: Bea Johnson
Related Symbols: 102 Tons
Page Number: 241
Explanation and Analysis:

Johnson and her zero-waste crusade are a whole different animal. She has identified a problem not on a campus or a beach but inside everyone’s home and lifestyle. And her family has responded by transforming itself in a dramatic way, becoming happier and more prosperous by rejecting the consumer economy and lifestyle most Americans live and breathe. Is there any wonder why this angers so many people? Agreeing with the Johnsons’ views means you either have to accept living a wasteful life, or change.

Related Characters: Andy Keller, Bea Johnson, Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer
Related Symbols: 102 Tons
Page Number: 253
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue Quotes

Waste-cutting is the secret to sustainability, security and prosperity. That 102-ton legacy doesn’t have to be the end of the story. It’s in everyone’s power to make it the starting point instead.

Related Symbols: 102 Tons
Page Number: 262
Explanation and Analysis: