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Chapter 5
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
Miriam Goldstein was one of the scientists working on solving the massive ocean trash patches. Goldstein was much younger than Crowley, and unlike the veteran sailor, Goldstein frequently got seasick in boats. After making her first big sea voyage to the Pacific Garbage Patch, however, she knew she’d found what she wanted to study.
The presence of Goldstein in the book emphasizes how solving the garbage crisis isn’t just an issue for veterans like Crowley but how it should energize people near the beginnings of their careers, too. The garbage crisis requires input from all sorts of people who can attack the problem from a variety of angles.
Themes
Goldstein and her colleagues were surprised to learn that the Pacific Garbage Patch wasn’t just a distinct mass, but instead a wide area with different concentrations of trash, less of an “island” and more of a “chowder.” Goldstein wondered how creatures lived in the gyre of the garbage patch.
While the Pacific Garbage Patch is perhaps the most visible sign of the ocean’s pollution problems, Goldstein’s experience shows that it doesn’t exist in quite the form that people might expect.
Themes
Because of the vast size of the ocean, some questions about its plastic content remain unanswered or only have educated guesses. Still, the United Nations estimated that over 7 million tons of trash went into the ocean each year, with 5.6 million tons of that being plastic.
The numbers in this section are huge, perhaps too big to even imagine clearly (which is why visual signs like the Pacific Garbage Patch are so important). The main takeaway from these numbers is that plastic makes up a shockingly high proportion of all ocean trash.
Themes
One hundred years ago, there was no plastic in the ocean because there was no plastic at all. Plastic went from nothing to omnipresent, even though it was invented long after other modern innovations like color photography, helicopters, and vacuum cleaners. Ironically, though plastic is now a major threat to nature, it was initially championed as a savior of nature, since it meant, for example, that piano keys could be manufactured without killing elephants for ivory.
On the one hand, the suddenness of plastic’s appearance and explosive growth is a warning sign. It shows just how easy it is for a major environmental problem to spiral out of control. Still, on the other hand, it is possible to take some hope from plastic’s origins. After all, if it was possible that the world existed without plastic for so long, then perhaps it’s also possible to imagine a future that goes beyond plastic.
Themes
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World War II led to a major increase in plastic production, then after the war, manufacturers tried to make use of their excess capacity to make new plastic products. By the 1960s and 1970s, plastic had really grown, surpassing aluminum in raw volume, then steel.
Because Humes believes that greater knowledge can motivate people to change their habits, he believes there is inherent value in exploring the history of plastic’s rise.
Themes
Though some of the claims about plastic being a “miracle material” are true, these claims neglect to mention plastic’s long life cycle and afterlife. Dirty plastic can’t be recycled, meaning a lot of it sticks around and ends up in oceans. This led people like Mary Crowley and Miriam Goldstein to ask what could really be done about all the mountains of plastic garbage.
Humes doesn’t dismiss the positive aspects of plastic outright, but ultimately, he concludes that the negatives far outweigh the positives. This position reflects his view that long-term consequences are much more important than short-term gains.
Themes
