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Introduction
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
Mike Speiser, aka Big Mike, was one of the workers who helped create the Puente Hills landfill outside Los Angeles, the biggest active landfill of its kind in the United States, which had 130 million tons of trash and only continued to grow.
Big Mike’s most important tool for managing the garbage was the BOMAG, a German-made bulldozer that was 14 feet tall by 30 feet wide, with the ability to push with 100,000 pounds of force. In a single day, Big Mike could use the BOMAG to compact 13,000 tons of garbage into a rectangle the size of a football field, 15 feet deep. The job was not only difficult but dangerous, with eight landfill workers dying on the job in 2010, but Big Mike has been doing the job for 20 years and excels at it.
The description of the BOMAG is meant to inspire awe. At the same time, however, it is worrying because it stands as a testament to how extreme the U.S.’s trash problem is. Throughout this chapter, Humes explores the tension between humanity’s ingenious solutions for dealing with trash and the unfortunate problems that required these solutions in the first place. Ultimately, he argues that people have the ability to deal with the trash problem—they’re just investing energy into the wrong solutions.
Themes
Puente Hills was big, spanning 1365 acres. Half the space was a buffer zone and a wildlife preserve, while the other half (which is as big as Central Park) was all trash, with some trash mountains rising as high as 500 feet tall. The landfill had its own microclimate and needed to be constantly managed to avoid sending noxious smells to nearby residential neighborhoods.
This section destroys the myth that landfills exist on their own, isolated where no one has to deal with them. In fact, they are a big part of their local environments, even affecting the climate, although people who don’t live nearby might never realize this.
Themes
The history of Puente Hills goes back to the 1950s, when it started off as a normal dump. It didn’t become a leading facility in the so-called “garbage crisis” until 1983. The question of “Where are we going to put all the trash?” has come up many times throughout history, and though the United States has historically found new places to dump trash, by 2011, it was running out of space.
Like many problems in the garbage crisis, Puente Hills is the result of not thinking ahead. This type of thinking leads to local problems, like the explosive growth of Puente Hills, but more importantly it carries implications for how the trash crisis could impact the whole planet.
Themes
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The first “garbage crisis” in history occurred 2,500 years ago in Athens, Greece. Athenians used to just throw trash out their windows, leading to unsanitary streets, but then a new law forbade littering within a mile of city limits. The law was only a temporary success, with filthy urban streets remaining a problem through the 1300s, when dirty streets helped foster the spread of the Black Death. From the Middle Ages to the present, government trash policies have responded to cycles of crises and controversies.
This section shows that problems with garbage aren’t new and that, in some ways, things used to be worse. Before people understood what germs are, sanitation was much worse, with filthy streets helping to spread disease. Part of the reason why Humes recounts this history is to show how it is possible for humans to adapt to better trash practices, particularly once they learn more about the problem.
Themes
Every morning (except Sundays) in 2011, a line of garbage trucks came to the weighing stations outside Puente Hills, ready to pile more waste onto Garbage Mountain. One of the biggest problems at landfills is how to deal with emissions (which can have unpleasant smells and be bad for the atmosphere). Puente Hills was a leader in pumping garbage through plastic pipes in a way that managed the emissions and helped create fuel for electricity, pioneering techniques that would be used around the world.
This passage describes a typical day at Puente Hills. It is meant to surprise readers by showing how involved the process of dumping waste is, and what’s particularly shocking is that it happens every day, while most people remain unaware.
Themes
Still, problems with landfills remain. Seagulls sometimes pick up garbage and carry it to residential areas. Puente Hills was “the Disneyland of dumps,” but it didn’t solve the U.S.’s biggest trash question: is it time to move beyond dumps, or do we just need to find more dumping space again?
This passage sums up many of the chapter’s central ideas. While landfills like Puente Hills are impressive—even admirable in some ways, as feats of engineering—ultimately, they are simply a coping mechanism to avoid the real problem. Eventually there won’t be enough space for more garbage, even for landfills as efficient as Puente Hills.
Themes
