Planet junk: a journey through discards

Abstract

In exploring the vast global tide of used and discarded goods, Adam Minter, a journalist writing on technology and the environment, delivers a book as crammed with oddities and gems as the second-hand shops he loves to haunt. The United Nations estimates that the fashion industry, for instance, is responsible for 10% of global greenhouse-gas emissions and 20% of waste water. Minter laments that even on eBay, the online auction house that began as a game-changing force in the sale of used goods, poorly crafted new products now comprise more than eight out of every ten sales.