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Common Read Resource Guide - Penguin Books
Book Club Readers Guide
Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash
Book Club Readers Guide
- What surprised you most in reading Garbology and how does that connect with your life?
- What could people learn about you from your trash?
- When people talk about trash solutions, most focus on recycling. But Bea Johnson, of the Zero Waste Home blog, focuses on “refusing” – as in refusing to let plastic, party favors and excess packaging in her home in the first place. What do you think about this idea?
- Author Edward Humes reveals that our nation’s biggest export is our trash, and that our waste is far greater than many government and industry experts realize -- 102 tons per person in a lifetime. Can you think of better solutions than building Garbage Mountains like the one described at the start of the book?
- Garbology details the growing problem of plastic ocean pollution as a threat to sea life and our food supply. Responses include community beach cleanups and plastic bag bans in a growing number of cities. What more should we do?
- Kim Masoner, founder of Save Our Beach in Seal Beach, Calif., crochets plastic bags into bedrolls for the homeless. San Francisco’s dump has 3 resident artists making trash into art. What are your ideas for turning trash into treasure?
- Andy Keller, founder of Chico Bags, calls plastic bags “the gateway drug” to wastefulness. What’s your relationship with plastic and disposable plastic bags?
- Could you (do you) get by without plastic bags? Other disposables?
- What are people doing in your community to reduce waste? Does your town offer guidelines for recycling? Collect green waste separately? Encourage composting?
- It may not be possible to live truly waste-free. But we all can do better -- and save a boatload of money -- if we make it a priority to gradually change wasteful habits. What simple, practical habits can you change in your home that would reduce your 102-ton garbage footprint?
Penguin Books - Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS