Bloomsbury Publishing
Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale
Key Metrics
- Adam Minter
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Hardcover
- 9781635570106
- 9.3 X 6 X 1.3 inches
- 1.3 pounds
- Technology & Engineering > Environmental - Waste Management
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Revelatory, terrifying, but, ultimately, hopeful. --Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE SIXTH EXTINCTION
From the author of Junkyard Planet, a journey into the surprising afterlives of our former possessions.
Downsizing. Decluttering. Discarding. Sooner or later, all of us are faced with things we no longer need or want. But when we drop our old clothes and other items off at a local donation center, where do they go? Sometimes across the country--or even halfway across the world--to people and places who find value in what we leave behind.
In Secondhand, journalist Adam Minter takes us on an unexpected adventure into the often-hidden, multibillion-dollar industry of reuse: thrift stores in the American Southwest to vintage shops in Tokyo, flea markets in Southeast Asia to used-goods enterprises in Ghana, and more. Along the way, Minter meets the fascinating people who handle--and profit from--our rising tide of discarded stuff, and asks a pressing question: In a world that craves shiny and new, is there room for it all?
Secondhand offers hopeful answers and hard truths. A history of the stuff we've used and a contemplation of why we keep buying more, it also reveals the marketing practices, design failures, and racial prejudices that push used items into landfills instead of new homes. Secondhand shows us that it doesn't have to be this way, and what really needs to change to build a sustainable future free of excess stuff.
Author Bio
Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and he has reported from China and Asia-Pacific region. He holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago and his writings have appeared in a range of publications including the Atlantic to ArtNews.
He is the author of “Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade” and "Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale."
In 2003, he was awarded the Stephen Barr Award for Feature Writing from the American Society of Business Publication Editors, for his reporting on China's emerging scrap-recycling industry.
Source: Bloomberg.com and LinkedIn.com
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