I read this so you don't have to.

I learned all these fascinating but quite unsettling things about our rejectamenta (isn't that a great word??). The most significant thing I learned is that while recycling is fine and dandy (it makes us feel good about ourselves), the most meaningful step we can take to reduce our garbage problem is to stop buying and acquiring stuff. (This makes me feel so much better about the slightly worn towels I can't bring myself to toss out.)

Did you ever suspect, as I did, that the carefully separated glass bottles and aluminum cans in your recycling bin ended up in the same place with the Chinese food containers you tossed into your trash? Depending on where you live that may be the case.

Did you ever wonder as you (I'm sorry) flushed the toilet where the contents went? If you lived in Boston up until 1990 the contents ended up being dumped into the Atlantic Ocean.

Did you ever wonder where all the hospitals sent their used bandages and surgical supplies? In most places the answer is "to the landfill," along with your Chinese food containers and your beer and wine bottles.

And of course some of our trash ends up on barges moving around the globe looking for poor countries that will take it off our hands.

One Ghanaian artist, El Anatsui, found a way to recycle some stuff. He made this piece of art called Dusasa II (2007) using found aluminum, copper wire, and plastic disks. It now hangs in the Met in NY. Not exactly a cost-effective plan for the rest of the planet but at least THAT stuff isn't sitting at the bottom of a 500-foot landfill in Ghana.

And the author doesn't address this problem, but if we all stopped acquiring rejectamenta wouldn't the manufacturing structure holding up much of the world's economy collapse?? These things worry me.