Recycling Books

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

William McDonough, Michael Braungart

Amazon Price: $18.15 List Price: $27.50 Usually ships in 24 hours By: North Point Press Amazon Marketplace: 104 new & used starting at $13.98

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Subjects -> Outdoors & Nature -> Conservation -> General
Subjects -> Outdoors & Nature -> Conservation -> General AAS
Subjects -> Outdoors & Nature -> Environment -> Conservation

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 148 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A manifesto for a radically different philosophy and practice of manufacture and environmentalism

"Reduce, reuse, recycle" urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. As William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue in their provocative, visionary book, however, this approach perpetuates a one-way, "cradle to grave" manufacturing model that dates to the Industrial Revolution and casts off as much as 90 percent of the materials it uses as waste, much of it toxic. Why not challenge the notion that human industry must inevitably damage the natural world, they ask.

In fact, why not take nature itself as our model? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we do not consider its abundance wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective; hence, "waste equals food" is the first principle the book sets forth. Products might be designed so that, after their useful life, they provide nourishment for something new-either as "biological nutrients" that safely re-enter the environment or as "technical nutrients" that circulate within closed-loop industrial cycles, without being "downcycled" into low-grade uses (as most "recyclables" now are).

Elaborating their principles from experience (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, the authors make an exciting and viable case for change.

Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System

Mary Appelhof

Amazon Price: $10.36 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Flower Press Amazon Marketplace: 35 new & used starting at $7.97

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Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Gardening & Horticulture -> Techniques -> Organic
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Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Gardening & Horticulture -> Techniques -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

What a great starter book 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I was encouraged to buy this book when I was talking about starting a worm farm for the output from my juicer. It is a great over view then detail explanation of what to do to get off to a great start. The observations and insights gave me enough comfort to just start a bin rather than over thinking it. I created my own version of a bin system that is expandable using 50 plastic barrels.
What a great and interesting topic.
Dave

Editorial Review:

The definitive guide to vermicomposting-a process using redworms to recycle food waste into nutrient-rich food for plants. Newly revised and updated, this 162 page manual provides complete illustrated instructions on setting up and maintaining small-scale worm composting systems. Topics include different bins, what kind of worms to use, sex life of a worm, preparing worm beddings, how to meet the needs of the worms, what kinds of foods to feed the worms, harvesting worms, and making potting soil from the vermicompost produced. A 63 page bibliography, 24 annotated references, a glossary,and comprehensive index make this a valuabe reference book as well as a practical manual.

It's Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth-Friendly Living

Crissy Trask

Amazon Price: $10.39 List Price: $12.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Gibbs Smith, Publisher Amazon Marketplace: 95 new & used starting at $2.48

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Home Design -> Remodeling & Renovation -> Energy Efficiency

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Another chance to get down into the trenches and make a difference 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

HElp to get my head out of the sand and make a difference in what I am doing and how I am living

Great Little Starter Guide to "Living Green" 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This little book is an easy and quick read. The best feature is the checklist items at the end, which gives you a lot to think about. It is also a great way to get started on the road to "living green". It has a lot of information and it isn't complicated at all. It actually has some cute drawings and it is so user friendly that my 12 year old niece read it as well. I would definitely recommend it.

Editorial Review:

Surveys find that over 80 percent of Americans agree with the goals of the environmental movement. Sadly, most Americans admit to doing little more than basic recycling when it comes to acting on that disposition. What is the reason for this great divide between environmental sentiment in this country and individual actions? Author and environmental consultant Crissy Trask seeks to answer this question-and solve the disparity-with a new book that makes it easy to be an environmentalist, no matter how busy or hectic your lifestyle. This is a day to day guide with simple, practical suggestions that anyone can put into action, like:

The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure, Third Edition

Joseph C. Jenkins

Amazon Price: $16.50 List Price: $25.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Jenkins Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $15.68

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Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Gardening & Horticulture -> Techniques -> Organic
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Current Events -> Poverty -> Social Services & Welfare
Subjects -> Outdoors & Nature -> Conservation -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 64 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great for the environment 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Due to a plumbing fault in the house, my family have been composting in the back garden on a daily basis for over a year. What a bonus to stumble upon this book and find out that our actions have been helping to preserve the future of our planet! A number of residents in our street have complainined that the local environment has been suffering from some kind of unpleasant air pollution of late, so we feel proud to be putting something back.

Editorial Review:

There are almost seven billion defecating people on planet Earth, but few who have any clue about how to constructively handle the burgeoning mountain of human crap. The Humanure Handbook, third edition, will amuse you, educate you, and possibly offend you, but it will certainly pertain to you—unless, of course, your bowels never move.
This new edition of The Humanure Handbook is:

The Tenth Anniversary Edition

Richly illustrated with eye-candy artwork

Perfect for reading while sitting on the “throne”

Revised, improved, and updated

256 pages of crap

Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash

Elizabeth Royte

Amazon Price: $10.19 List Price: $14.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Back Bay Books Amazon Marketplace: 86 new & used starting at $2.97

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> Rural
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> Urban
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A must read for those who throw away trash... EVERYONE! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Garbage Land is a well researched look into the world of waste handling. The book not only deals with garbage sent to landfills but also recycling both in the US and around the world.

Truly and eye opening book that changed the way that I lived and felt about the world.

An amazing book, now at an amazing price.

FASCINATING 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Just by becoming AWARE of the lingering, never to completely escape from PROBLEM of garbage--OUR garbage--is a good thing, a wondrous good thing. But this book goes beyond simple consciousness-raising: it propels you to ACTION!

Garbage Land Is A Keeper 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

What a great, quirky book. I have worked in the Waste Management field for a number of years, and Ms. Royte got it right with this book. I liked the way she personalized her own waste-generating impact by riding along with the trash collectors. I also appreciated the anecdotal nature of much of the book, which kept it from being too serious.

Editorial Review:

The wild adventure begins once our trash hits the canas Elizabeth Royte boldly follows the things weve disposed of to their ultimate (often surprising) destination. Her highly praised book melds science, travel, anthropology, and a strong dose of clear-headed analysis as it reminds us how our decisions about consumption and waste have a very real impact.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: An Easy Household Guide (The Chelsea Green Guides)

Nicky Scott

Amazon Price: $7.95 List Price: $7.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Chelsea Green Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 42 new & used starting at $3.52

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Subjects -> Home & Garden -> How-to & Home Improvements -> Green Housecleaning
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> How-to & Home Improvements -> Household Hints
Subjects -> Outdoors & Nature -> Conservation -> General

Editorial Review:

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE: AN EASY HOUSEHOLD GUIDE
THE CHELSEA GREEN GUIDES—A NEW SERIES OF POCKET-SIZED BOOKS TO HELP SAVE THE EARTH!
Do you know what to do with your old cell phone? Where you can responsibly dispose of old medicines? What happens to the stuff you recycle? This easy-to-use guide has answers to all your recycling questions. Its A-Z listing of everyday household items shows you how to recycle most of your unwanted things, do your bit for the planet, and maybe make a little money at the same time. With a comprehensive resources section and information on how to get more involved, this is an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to stop the Earth from going to waste. Also available:
WATER: USE LESS—SAVE MORE
ENERGY: USE LESS—SAVE MORE
COMPOSTING: AN EASY HOUSEHOLD GUIDE

Recycled Crafts Box

Laura C. Martin

Amazon Price: $8.76 List Price: $10.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Storey Publishing, LLC Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $5.99

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Subjects -> Children's Books -> Ages 9-12 -> General
Subjects -> Children's Books -> Ages 9-12 -> General AAS
Subjects -> Children's Books -> Arts & Music -> Crafts & Hobbies

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Corrugated Castle. Fancy Foil Fish Mobile. Paper Bead Bangles. Braided Rag Coasters. Old Shoe Flower Pots. Puppy Dog Sock Puppet. With a little imagination, just about anything we think of as trash can be transformed into an art project good enough to give as a gift or to keep and treasure yourself.

In her first Storey Kids book, Nature's Art Box, master crafter Laura C. Martin showed kids how pebbles, twigs, seedpods, and shells can be turned into things of beauty. Now, in Recycled Crafts Box, she uses as her art supplies the paper, plastic, metal, and cloth we usually consign to the recycling bin or the garbage can.

The way Martin sees it, just about everything around us holds artistic possibilities. Plastic picnic plates can be cut up to make a bouquet of flowers that will never wilt (and don't need watering). Roll leftover gift wrap into tight tubes and cut it into small sections to make one of- a-kind beads. Decorate the sides of old paint cans with acrylic paint and tie sturdy rope to the handles to make a pair of stilts.

Along the way, Martin offers sidebars on the history of rubbish and profiles of artists whose medium is junk. She passes along important lessons about being a good steward of the Earth. But the lessons are light and fun--never preachy.

Fun for kids, perfect for involved and homeschooling parents, and ideal for schoolteachers who have seen their art supply budgets slashed, Recycled Crafts Box shows budding artists how to make something beautiful and save the planet at the same time.

Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash

Susan Strasser

Amazon Price: $16.66 List Price: $17.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Holt Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 42 new & used starting at $6.99

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Economic Conditions
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

An unprecedented look at that most commonplace act of everyday life-throwing things out-and how it has transformed American society.

Susan Strasser's pathbreaking histories of housework and the rise of the mass market have become classics in the literature of consumer culture. Here she turns to an essential but neglected part of that culture-the trash it produces-and finds in it an unexpected wealth of meaning.

Before the twentieth century, streets and bodies stank, but trash was nearly nonexistent. With goods and money scarce, almost everything was reused. Strasser paints a vivid picture of an America where scavenger pigs roamed the streets, swill children collected kitchen garbage, and itinerant peddlers traded manufactured goods for rags and bones. Over the last hundred years, however, Americans have become hooked on convenience, disposability, fashion, and constant technological change-the rise of mass consumption has led to waste on a previously unimaginable scale.

Lively and colorful, Waste and Want recaptures a hidden part of our social history, vividly illustrating that what counts as trash depends on who's counting, and that what we throw away defines us as much as what we keep.

Water Treatment: Principles and Design

MWH

Amazon Price: $128.00 List Price: $160.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wiley Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $92.79

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Subjects -> Outdoors & Nature -> Environment -> Recycling
Subjects -> Professional & Technical -> Engineering -> Civil -> Environmental -> General
Subjects -> Professional & Technical -> Engineering -> Civil -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The one-stop resource for all aspects of water treatment engineering-from theory to practice
Completely revised and updated to address current practices and technologies, Water Treatment: Principles and Design, Second Edition provides unique coverage of both the principles and theory of water treatment, as well as the practical considerations of plant design and distribution.
Written by the world's leading water engineering firm, Water Treatment: Principles and Design, Second Edition presents the breadth of water treatment engineering-from the theory and principles of water chemistry and microbiology to in-depth discussions of revolutionary treatment processes to concise tips for plant and network design. Material has been extensively updated and revised in response to regulatory requirements and growing public awareness, particularly in the areas of disinfection, membrane filtration, disposal of treatment plant residuals, and basic microbiology with an emphasis on human pathogens and diseases.
Water Treatment: Principles and Design, Second Edition provides an essential textbook for students and a reliable resource for environmental and water resources engineers.

Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage

William Rathje, Cullen Murphy

Amazon Price: $12.21 List Price: $17.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: University of Arizona Press Amazon Marketplace: 52 new & used starting at $6.12

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Anthropology -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Anthropology -> General AAS
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Archaeology -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

There is a link between owning a cat and reading "The National Enquirer"! 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

"Rubbish" is a highly academic book about "The Garbage Project" at the University of Arizona's Anthropology Department. The main idea behind "The Garbage Project" is to gain information about society by analyzing garbage patterns in various locations.

Despite being a book about garbage, the contents of the book are quite diverse. The book is divided into 4 parts. The first section, An Introduction to the Garbage Project, gives the background of "The Garbage Project", why it started, what they do, and what they hope to accomplish. This section also discusses how anthropologists use garbage to learn about ancient civilizations. The second section, The Landfill Excavations, discuss the basic theories of landfills, how the team takes samples from landfills, and discusses why biodegradation does not work in landfills. The third section, Interlude: Diapers and Demographics, I found to be highly entertaining. This section has a fascinating chapter on estimating the population of a neighborhood (as well as sex and age) based on the garbage collected from this neighborhood (a study done to initially help the Census Bureau). This section is also filled with useless information such as "There is a link between owning a cat and reading "The National Enquirer"". There is also a detailed discussion about disposable diapers in landfills. The final section, Garbage and the Future, was the most educational by far. This part discusses the serious shortcomings of citywide recycling programs and side effects people never hear about. There are also discussions on alternate garbage disposal methods, such as high tech incinerators used to generate electricity, as well as several other attempts at using technology to turn garbage into a useful product. The section and the book end with a chapter on reducing and addressing garbage disposal.

I think this book will not be for everyone. The book reads like a Master's Thesis at times, rather long and seems to ramble. However, some parts of the book are exceptional (such as the chapter on recycling or "Closing the Loop") and are really an eye opener.

I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in Environmental Sciences. Also, if you can manage to wade through pages of various scientific theories and facts, I'd highly recommend picking this book up! While a little slow reading at times, it is quite informative and I think a real eye opener.

Editorial Review:

It is from the discards of former civilizations that archaeologists have reconstructed most of what we know about the past, and it is through their examination of today's garbage that Rathje and Murphy inform us of our present. Rubbish! is their witty and erudite investigation into all aspects of the phenomenon of garbage. They show what the study of garbage tells us about a population's demographics and buying habits. Along the way, they dispel the common myths about our "garbage crisis"--about fast-food packaging and disposable diapers, about biodegradable garbage and the acceleration of the average family's garbage output. They also suggest methods for dealing with garbage.