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Chapter 9
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
Andy Keller used to work in software before he created the ChicoBag. After being forced out of his software job, he started doing yard work on his house and created so much waste that he had nowhere to put it. This led to him visiting a landfill for the first time. Seeing all the plastic bags, he was inspired to sew his own ChicoBag, a reusable grocery bag.
Though the ChicoBag still had a large carbon footprint from being manufactured abroad, it was an affordable and sustainable alternative to plastic bags, and by 2011, it was making five million dollars annually in revenue. Keller went around to schools, showing just how wasteful plastic bags can be. This led to the creation of “Bag Monster,” his super-villain alter ego, which involved using a costume of 500 plastic bags to show the bags’ dangers. Soon, more Bag Monster costumes were made for other educators to use.
Keller’s creation of the Bag Monster shows how important it is to be able to present information in interesting ways. Though the monster is fictional, it serves a similar educational purpose to the Pacific Garbage Patch, providing a visible sign of a problem that is in many ways invisible to the average observer, despite its large scale.
Themes
Around the time that Keller gave a TED Talk, plastic bag lobbyists began to fight back against activists like him. Though many consumers hated plastic when it was first introduced, companies knew that people would get used to the new products eventually. By the early 21st century, about 90 percent of grocery bags were plastic. Part of the reason the plastics industry remained so powerful was that it didn’t move offshore and still retained large numbers of American workers.
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. The organization hosts popular lectures by people in those fields, which are widely shared online. Though today reusable grocery bags and plastic bag bans are becoming more common in the U.S., Keller was working near the beginning of this movement, and the plastics industry was arguably even more powerful.
Themes
While paper bags bring their own problems, they can be recycled indefinitely and are cheaper when recycled, whereas only about 1 percent of plastic bags are recycled. In 2002, Ireland became one of the first countries to act against plastic bags, placing a tax on them and setting a model for future governments. Despite initial resistance, the public and even grocery store chains soon began to appreciate reusable bags.
Humes is quick to acknowledge the lack of perfect solutions for the garbage crisis, showing how paper bags have their own issues, even if they are ultimately a step up from plastic. Though Ireland’s politics and culture don’t line up exactly with the U.S., there is enough similarity between the two countries to suggest that a similar tax in the U.S. might produce comparable results.
Themes
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When San Francisco tried a plastic bag tax similar to Ireland’s, lobbyists from plastic bag manufacturers got a law passed that prevented plastic bag taxes. San Francisco responded by simply banning single-use plastic bags outright. Despite seeming to be more comprehensive, the San Francisco ban was actually less effective than the Irish tax because it only affected large businesses and still allowed for free paper bags to be given out.
In spite of the previous passage, however, the anti-plastic bag measures in San Francisco were not as successful as in Ireland. Humes argues that the issue is not that San Francisco is fundamentally different from Ireland, but that San Francisco’s specific implementation of the measures was less effective, driven in part by political pressure.
Themes
Other communities across the U.S. began experimenting with different versions of plastic bag bans, frequently in spite of opposition from plastic lobbyists. Some of these cities cooperated with companies like ChicoBag and others in the “upcycling” space, since they had a common enemy in the plastic industry.
The popularity of plastic bag bans across the U.S. suggests that many people like the idea and that the strongest opposition is coming from the powerful plastic bag industry, which has a lot of money to help spread its views.
Themes
TerraCycle was a company founded by two Princeton University freshmen in 2001, Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer. It started out as just an entry in a business contest—they would take food scraps from the dining hall and turn them into fertilizer using worm farms. The duo expanded their worm fertilizer idea, eventually turning a profit after getting picked up by Home Depot and Walmart. By 2006, it was a multimillion-dollar company, and in 2007, the company behind Miracle-Gro sued TerraCycle for copying the company’s packaging style.
TerraCycle shows that Keller wasn’t an anomaly and that in fact plenty of other enterprising people were looking at the growing garbage crisis around them and trying to find a new, better solution than dumping everything into landfills. While Szaky and Beyer are an exceptionally successful case and come from a privileged college background, they nevertheless demonstrate how big ideas can begin as something small and seemingly insignificant.
Themes
Miracle-Gro has long faced criticism from environmentalists for all the toxic herbicides and pesticides it contains. The company took offense at some of TerraCycle’s marketing and packaging, which it claimed reflected negatively on their product. TerraCycle responded by creating a website dedicated to fighting back in the case, promoting the image of a David vs. Goliath fight. Though the website raised little money, it became a major PR victory after being picked up by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
This whole section with Miracle-Gro suggests that major companies can frequently find loopholes in laws that arguably twist the laws’ original intent—all for the sake of eliminating up-and-coming competitors. Humes associates Miracle-Gro with a consumerist mindset, since the product gives the appearance of well-kept greenery while actually putting all sorts of toxic chemicals into the earth.
Themes
Ultimately, the case was settled with no money changing hands but TerraCycle agreeing to modify its packaging. Though Miracle-Gro made no concessions and both companies had to pay legal fees, TerraCycle benefited from a massive publicity boost while the stock of the Miracle-Gro company took a dive.
The messy ending of the court cases shows how legal disputes rarely end in the sort of slam dunk victories that both sides are hoping for. Nevertheless, they show how courts can provide a way for small companies like TerraCycle to compete on somewhat even terrain with industry giants.
Themes
Andy Keller of ChicoBag also got unexpected publicity benefits from lawsuits with bigger companies. Some of the major companies claimed that facts about plastic bag pollution that Keller published on the ChicoBag website were harmful to his business. Though ChicoBag had accurately cited sources for the statistics, they could have been held legally accountable even for repeating others’ claims, if the claims were false and caused economic damage.
Keller’s experience shows that the litigation TerraCycle faced wasn’t an unusual event but is in fact part of a standard playbook used by big companies to try to force smaller competitors out of business. Though Keller is resourceful, this passage suggests that there is an element of luck at play when small companies are able to rebound from being taken to court.
Themes
After receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the plastic companies, Keller removed the statements in question from the ChicoBag website to investigate further, but he got sued anyway. Keller investigated his claims again and found that, while there may have been ways to improve some aspects of the claims, they were mostly true and far from misleading. The plastic bag companies dropped out of the lawsuit or settled before the case went to trial. Keller agreed to modify his claims slightly; ultimately, both sides claimed victory.
The outcome of Keller’s case, with both sides claiming victory, provides a further parallel with TerraCycle. It highlights the importance that narrative plays in a movement and how the same event can look different when viewed from different perspectives. Ultimately, however, Keller seemed to be the one with facts on his side, and the larger companies were left trying to suppress his ideas rather than refute them.
Themes
Plastic bags are often used for only a few hours, then have to potential to last as garbage for centuries. However, despite their seemingly huge impact on oceans, as a total percentage of the waste stream, they make up a relatively small part. Keller saw bags as a symbol for unnecessary waste as a whole. He believed that the cure for trash addiction has to start somewhere, and it might as well begin with the most visible sign: the plastic bag.
Keller recognizes the importance of visual symbols to people, and so he focuses on highly visible plastic bags instead of focusing on more abstract issues like pollution. The hope is that, ultimately, focusing on symbols like plastic bags will be the best way to get people to understand the larger issue.
Themes
