Waste Wars: Book Review 

Today, we will be reviewing Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash by Alexander Clapp, an expose about where your trash ends up and who is making billions of dollars in this industry. Keep reading to find out what we thought of this book and if you should read it too!

Waste Wars Summary

Journalist Alexander Clapp embarks on a two-year journey across five continents to see for himself where most of the trash of the worlds ends up. His travels take him to places like Java, the jungles of Guatemala, Turkey, and Ghana and what he sees there is unbelievable.

Cities have built jobs around the trash that is imported legally and illegally in this country and is being destroyed and moved by people with no expertise to do so. 

Clapp looks at the history of waste and how richer countries have convinced poor countries to take their trash, the poor countries often times paying them to do so. The reality is grim and yet nothing is being done about it. Communities are suffering and the environment is being destroyed as a result of this neglect.

Commentary

Waste Wars was released in February 2025 and once I read a summary of this book, I knew I had to read it. I love research-driven books and what Alexander Clapp has accomplished with this book is award-worthy. 

It takes a book like this to educate the masses and to hold these powerful companies and countries responsible. Clapp travels to dangerous places that are run and enforced by criminal organizations, to places where nobody would think about vacationing to uncover stories that haven’t gotten the media attention that they deserve.

After reading this incredible books, I can’t help but think about all the trash that accumulates in my home, my city, and country. Now I know the fate of it and that the solution we have at the moment is not good. Some cities and countries are doing the right thing but too many aren’t and countries that aren’t as well off are forced to take them or they might anger their richer trading partners. 

I do hope that this book and the research done by Clapp leads to change that will reshape the world of trash. We do need to find better ways to store our trash and to break it down and not send it to other countries because it is much cheaper. 

Conclusion

If you had to read one nonfiction book this year, then make it this book. You will be hooked by the first page and Clapp’s research and storytelling will make you think of this book for a long time. Happy reading!

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