Clapp sounds the alarm ... Despite such depressing conclusions, reading Waste Wars isn’t depressing. Clapp is a lively writer, and his deeply researched book deftly combines history and global economics with stories of real people and tangible details of modern life. You will never look at plastic bags the same way.
A colonoscopy in book form, an exploration of the guts of the modern world ... The biggest villain in the global trash economy is plastic, and Clapp shows in horrifying detail the intractability of this problem ... Waste Wars demonstrates the mounting consequences of such inaction: Residents of wealthier nations are jeopardizing much of the planet in exchange for the freedom to ignore the consequences of their own convenience.
Clapp has performed an important and courageous service by exposing the workings of this furtive activity to sunlight. One can take the view that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with moving trash across borders to manage it; but it is hard to see much upside from the way the trade has evolved.
