Wasteland
The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future
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Narrated by:
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Chris Harper
About this listen
An award-winning investigative journalist takes a deep dive into the global waste crisis, exposing the hidden world that enables our modern economy—and finds out the dirty truth behind a simple question: what really happens to what we throw away?
In Wasteland, journalist Oliver Franklin-Wallis takes us on a shocking journey inside the waste industry—the secretive multi-billion dollar world that underpins the modern economy, quietly profiting from what we leave behind. In India, he meets the waste-pickers on the front line of the plastic crisis. In the UK, he journeys down sewers to confront our oldest—and newest—waste crisis, and comes face-to-face with nuclear waste. In Ghana, he follows the after-life of our technology and explores the global export network that results in goodwill donations clogging African landfills. From an incinerator to an Oklahoma ghost-town, Franklin-Wallis travels in search of the people and companies that really handle waste—and on the way, meets the innovators and campaigners pushing for a cleaner and less wasteful future.
With this mesmerizing, thought-provoking, and occasionally terrifying investigation, Oliver Franklin-Wallis tells a new story of humanity based on what we leave behind, and along the way, he shares a blueprint for building a healthier, more sustainable world—before we’re all buried in trash.
©2023 Oliver Franklin-Wallis (P)2023 Hachette BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“With his investigative chops and contagious curiosity, Oliver Franklin-Wallis has cracked wide a dozen hidden, jaw-dropping worlds. … Yet despite its grim revelations, the book offers hope—for we can’t begin to make things right until we understand the nuanced realities of what is wrong. Wasteland is compelling, smart, fair, often funny, always interesting, and just f*ing important. Truly, it’s the most impressive nonfiction I’ve read in quite some time.”—Mary Roach, author of Stiff and Fuzz
“Sometimes it seems as if our main role as humans is to enjoy shiny things for a little while until they become discarded things. This is a fascinating and comprehensive tour of the second half of that equation–the tossed-out usually gets a thousandth the attention of the not-yet-purchased, but Oliver Franklin-Wallis does his best to redress that balance, in a book that wills you see the world quite differently than you did before.”—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
“Just as everything we consume comes from somewhere on earth, so too everything we produce must go somewhere on earth—even if we don't want to think about it. This book compels us to. 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. Revelatory, thoughtful, and honest about our complex relationship with waste.”—Gaia Vince, award-winning journalist and author of Transcendence and Nomad Century
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- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In this remarkable challenge to conventional thinking about the environment, David Owen argues that the greenest community in the United States is not Portland, Oregon, or Snowmass, Colorado, but New York City.
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A stupid and dangerously short sighted view
- By Gare&Sophia on 11-13-12
By: David Owen
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How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
- The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
- By: Bill Gates
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton, Bill Gates
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Bill Gates shares what he's learned in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address the problems, and sets out a vision for how the world can build the tools it needs to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions. Bill Gates explains why he cares so deeply about climate change and what makes him optimistic that the world can avoid the most dire effects of the climate crisis. Gates says, "We can work on a local, national, and global level to build the technologies, businesses, and industries to avoid the worst impacts of climate change."
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Be curious, not furious
- By Axel Merk on 02-20-21
By: Bill Gates
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The Upcycle
- Beyond Sustainability - Designing for Abundance
- By: William McDonough, Michael Braungart
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The Upcycle is the eagerly awaited follow-up to Cradle to Cradle, the most consequential ecological manifesto of our time. Now, drawing on the lessons gained from 10 years of putting the cradle-to-cradle concept into practice with businesses, governments, and ordinary people, William McDonough and Michael Braungart envision the next step in the solution to our ecological crisis: We don't just reuse resources with greater effectiveness, we actually improve them as we use them.
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A "must read" for the environmental movement.
- By Love owls on 07-09-13
By: William McDonough, and others
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Apocalypse Never
- Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
- By: Michael Shellenberger
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed "billions of people are going to die", contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction.
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Environmentalist with integrity!
- By Wayne on 07-01-20
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Windfall
- The Booming Business of Global Warming
- By: McKenzie Funk
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Global warming's physical impacts can be separated into three broad categories: melt, drought, and deluge. Funk travels to two dozen countries to profile entrepreneurial people who see a potential windfall in each of these forces. The melt is a boon for newly arable, mineral rich regions of the Arctic, such as Greenland - and for the man-made snow trade. Drought creates opportunities for private firefighters working for insurance companies as well as for fund managers backing south Sudanese warlords who control local farmland.
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unintended windfalls mixed with obvious perils
- By Andy on 02-09-14
By: McKenzie Funk
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On the Grid
- A Plot of Land, An Average Neighborhood, and the Systems that Make Our World Work
- By: Scott Huler
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In our daily lives, we're surrounded by wires, pipes, utility poles, cell phone towers, and myriad other infrastructure that facilitates almost everything we do. Even though these systems are essential, when was the last time you gave them much thought? In On the Grid, Scott Huler sets out to understand all of the systems that shape our society - from transportation, water, and garbage to the Internet coming through our cable lines.
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Amazing!
- By Skippy the Okie on 01-27-16
By: Scott Huler
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Living in the Long Emergency
- Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward
- By: James Howard Kunstler
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In his 2005 book, The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler described the global predicaments that would pitch the USA into political and economic turmoil in the 21st century - the end of affordable oil, climate irregularities, and flagging economic growth, to name a few. Now, he returns with a book that takes an up-close-and-personal approach to how real people are living now - surviving The Long Emergency as it happens.
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Please Read Before Buying
- By K. Skoog on 05-12-20
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Plastic Ocean
- By: Capt. Charles Moore, Cassandra Phillips
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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A prominent seafaring environmentalist and researcher shares his shocking discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean, which inspired a fundamental rethinking of the Plastic Age and a growing global health crisis.
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Informative
- By Paul on 01-30-23
By: Capt. Charles Moore, and others
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The Soil Will Save Us
- How Scientists, Farmers, and Ranchers Are Tending the Soil to Reverse Global Warming
- By: Kristin Ohlson
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Soil Will Save Us, journalist and bestselling author Kristin Ohlson makes an elegantly argued, passionate case for "our great green hope"—a way in which we can not only heal the land but also turn atmospheric carbon into beneficial soil carbon—and potentially reverse global warming. Her discoveries and vivid storytelling will revolutionize the way we think about our food, our landscapes, our plants, and our relationship to Earth.
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Rambling, mile wide, inch deep treatment of a subject
- By Charles Phillips on 10-17-18
By: Kristin Ohlson
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The Vertical Farm
- Feeding the World in the 21st Century
- By: Dickson Despommier
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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When Columbia professor Dickson Despommier set out to solve America's food, water, and energy crises, he didn't just think big - he thought up. The vertical farm has excited scientists, architects, and politicians around the globe. These farms, grown inside skyscrapers, would provide solutions to many of the serious problems we currently face.
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Excellent Brainstorming - Not reality
- By Texas Community Project on 01-25-11
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Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy
- By: Tim Harford
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy paints an epic picture of change in an intimate way by telling the stories of the tools, people, and ideas that had far-reaching consequences for all of us. From the plough to artificial intelligence, from Gillette's disposable razor to IKEA's Billy bookcase, best-selling author and Financial Times columnist Tim Harford recounts each invention's own curious, surprising, and memorable story.
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Thought provoking
- By Paul Norris on 09-10-17
By: Tim Harford
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The Alchemy of Air
- A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.
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Great Book Thoroughly Researched
- By Terry A. Gray on 10-21-11
By: Thomas Hager
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Slime
- How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us
- By: Ruth Kassinger
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In Slime we'll meet the algae innovators working toward a sustainable future: from seaweed farmers in South Korea, to scientists using it to clean the dead zones in our waterways, to the entrepreneurs fighting to bring algae fuel and plastics to market. Ruth Kassinger takes listeners on an around-the-world, behind-the-scenes, and into-the-kitchen tour. Whether you thought algae was just the gunk in your fish tank or you eat seaweed with your oatmeal, Slime will delight and amaze with its stories of the good, the bad, and the up-and-coming.
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Fairly entertaining and informative...but
- By Timothy on 08-27-19
By: Ruth Kassinger
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narrator ruined it
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Great book, but narration doesn’t fit.
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Wonderful knowledge locked into much detail
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In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil industry and America’s biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event, but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world.
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Fire and Brimstone
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wow what a engaging eye opening story
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narrator ruined it
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What listeners say about Wasteland
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Robin C.
- 09-26-24
Well written and narrated
This book is very informative and despite the topic, the author has written with great skill.
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- Bookworm
- 12-20-23
Our Trash
I’m not a wild eye tree hugging sort, but I believe that this book is of immense value. This well written and narrated book lays out a compelling argument. I highly recommend.
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- Dave Stagner
- 05-30-24
Will change how you think about waste
Powerful, frightening, educational, and pops so many self righteous bubbles. An excellent book. Facts are better than wishes!
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- rebecca tierney
- 11-08-23
Clear and interesting review of all our waste
I loved this book, it was very confrontational at times but beautifully written and sometimes very witty.
I wish everyone could read this book or at least be made aware of what happens to each type of waste we are creating.
Remember, 1st reduce, then reuse, repair, reuse, repair, resell, reuse :-) and only then when there is no other choice… recycle and recycle properly!
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- Anonymous User
- 08-07-24
Impactful
Timely book for policy makers in the most urgent global challenges. Not just science and data but with humanitarian concerns. Well done.
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- Timpboy
- 05-02-24
Great breadth of coverage
I expected this book to cover normal household waste and recycling. I did not expect and was pleased with the coverage of sewage, industrial waste, and even nuclear waste.
I also appreciated the author’s self-disclosing style and avoidance of preaching unrealistic ideals or oversimplifying a very complex problem. The best books cause you to think, question and explore topics further. This does all of that.
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- PaulC
- 05-30-24
Waste Knot
Somehow this book satisfied me on many levels. The author’s voice and dedication to researching the subject shine through the sometimes overwhelming and potentially action-paralyzing scope of the subject. Hope for me came through the voices of folks on the non-industrial front lines—a Ukrainian clothing reclaimer, a polyamorous dumpster-diving worm farmer, and kids supporting families by creatively and heroically finding materials to trade amidst horribly dangerous work environments. One of the most inspiring and humanistic treatments of the subject I’ve read.
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- John Zalloum
- 08-14-24
Shocking book
A lot of these notions are superficially known of but the author does a great job further explaining them to people so as to give a real understanding of the consequences of the consumerist world we live in.
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