Over the next couple of days, author Elizabeth Royte will be taking Champaign-Urbana by storm, speaking about and signing copies of her 2005 book, Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash on two different occasions. Tonight at the Champaign Public Library at 7 p.m., in Robeson Pavilion Room A & B, Royte will give a talk and sign copies of her book. Then, tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. in Parkland College Room C118, Royte will also speak and sign her book. Both of these events are free and open to the public.
If you’re not familiar with Royte, Garbage Land, or her new book, Bottlemania, which addresses the bottled-water craze, stop out and meet her or at least check out an interview with her after the jump.
Royte grew up outside Boston and moved to Manhattan after college, where she worked at The Nation. Her writing progressed from there into wider freelance outlets, and she’s lived in Brooklyn for the last nine years.
Smile Politely: Is it unusual for you to do appearances on Garbage Land now that you have a newer book out? It must be gratifying to have written a book with such a long “shelf life”.
Elizabeth Royte: It’s not that unusual – the book seems to have taken on a life of its own, and I think it’s great that people are so interested in talking/hearing about this issue.
SP: What developments in the Zero Waste movement are you aware of since your book was released?
ER: More communities across the country and around the world are passing zero-waste resolutions and exploring product stewardship – getting producers and manufacturers to take more responsibility for their product waste. Landfills are banning yard waste, retailers are taking back compact fluorescents, cell phones, and other consumer goods that shouldn’t be put in landfills or incinerators.
SP: Have higher steel scrap prices affected the flow of that material? How does the marketability of each product change how it moves or its desirability? I’m a chemical engineer and we’re working on a project with a client to recycle polyurethane foam from auto interiors. Are there a lot of products that have become more desirable to recycle recently?
ER: I think just about any material has more value now than it did when oil was cheaper, because it takes oil (or its equivalent) to mine new resources and transport and transform them into consumer goods. As for scrap metal, it’s always had high value (scrap is the primary feedstock of metal mills). But yes, markets drive recycling, and if there isn’t a ready outlet for a material, it’s difficult to justify collecting it. That said, some car crushers have been putting auto fluff (that foam you’re working with and a lot of tiny wires) into mono-fills, saving it for the day when it has some value. Sounds like that day is now.
SP: Do you find that people that attend your readings or contact you are defensive or judgmental about how they handle their own trash or what you do with yours? How emotionally attached are people to their practices when it comes to trash?
ER: People who come to my readings or contact me tend to be a self-selected group – they are happy/proud to tell me what they do with their trash, how little they make, the outlets they’ve found for various components. And they’re way better at garbage shrinking than I am. Possibly the sort of person who feels defensive about his or her waste, or angry with me for suggesting we’d be better off buying less stuff, wouldn’t have read my book in the first place, or come to a reading. But I’m happy to hear from them all the same.
SP: Did your book include any investigation of the historical mafia ties of some waste companies?
ER: I dealt with this briefly but it wasn’t my focus, as uniformed city-employed sanitation workers, not “the privates,” collect household waste in New York City, which is the stream that I followed.
SP: Is there any discernible progress or regression in recycling programs since the book came out?
ER: I think recycling rates in many places are stagnant or dropping: people don’t understand the recycling rules (which often change as markets change); communities don’t always enforce recycling; many people don’t trust that recycling is doing any good; environmental groups don’t focus on it the way they used to; and we’re a more mobile and impatient society – often unwilling or unable to hang onto beverage containers until we find a recycling bin. That said, many communities are doing better than ever – mostly on the West Coast.
SP: How much of the year do you spend traveling? Have you been to Champaign-Urbana before?
ER: I don’t travel that much – to speaking engagements and for reported pieces. I’ve never been to Champaign-Urbana.