The Year of No Garbage;Recycling Lies, Plastic Problems and One Woman' Trashy Journey to Zero Waste by Eva Schaub- forthcoming January 2023

 

The Year of No Garbage:Recycling Lies, Plastic Problems and One Woman's Trashy Journey to No Waste by Eva Schaub- Forthcoming January 2023- 336 Pages

"When we say “garbage” what we’re really saying is climate change. What we really mean is discrimination. What we really mean is cancer. Garbage is at the root of so many things that are going wrong in the world today— from global warming and environmental racism to cancer: the number two killer of Americans— and it’s getting worse all the time." From a year of no Garbage by Eva Schaub

This is a delightful account of Eva Schaub's very determined attempt to go a year without 

Creating any garbage. Living in Vermont with her husband and her two daughters, one in high school the other in college, she, began to wonder about what eventually happens to the estimated 6000 plus pounds of stuff they put in the garbage bins in front of the house.in a year.   Having written a book about her experiences totally cutting sugar from their diet, A Year Without Sugar, she decides to embark on a year of serious recycling while eliminating as much waste as possible. To make it all the more challenging, soon after she starts, the Covid Pandemic begins.  

The memoir is a blend of her challenges and what she learned about the terrible impact the extreme pervasiveness plastics have on the environment and the deceptions employed to make well meaning people feel good when they drop things in a recycling bin at the grocery store when in fact doing this just perpetuates problems. Garbage is moved from affluent places, "liberal" places and dumped on the poor areas. No predominantly White Country accepts garbage from other countries, no first world country. The fees paid to dump garbage go into the pockets of leaders of poorer countries.  

The first challenge Schaub faced was getting her family on board. Her husband Steve liked the idea,her two daughters reaction was "whatever,Mom". She soon realised how much plastic there was in the food she buys at the supermarket. Chicken, one example, comes in a plastic covered package with small plastic inserts under the Chicken. In order to recycle things they must be washed and dried.

I learned from Schaub how plastic pollution raises the temperature of oceans, destroying reefs and acquatic life on a huge scale. CO2 released from the plastic disposal contributes much more to global warming than fossil fuels. Schaub searched for ways to cut down on her consumption of plastic. She acknowledges that her relative afluence made it possible for her to devote time and money to the project. 

About half the book is involved with her findings. I want to share some of them here. But first I wish to share two seminal thoughts, totally supported by Schaub's findings, by academic scholars.

Author Adam Minter gives a haunting description of the global plastics recycling center in Wen’an, China, and the scrap plastics trade in his 2013 book Junkyard Planet. At the time this “shadowy trade” often involved burning unusable plastics in the streets and dumping unusable plastics and plastic cleaning fluids into a giant pit on the outskirts of town. The people of the city were suffering strange new ailments involving strokes, paralysis, and lung scarring. “Wen’an is the most polluted place I’ve ever visited,” Minter writes.

Yes this is where Covid probably started.

In her book A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind , author Harriet A. Washington explains that “African Americans and other people of color are 79 percent more likely than white US residents to live in neighborhoods” of toxic environmental chemicals residents to live in neighborhoods” of toxic environmental chemicals emitted from sources such as “petrochemical plants, refineries, garbage dumps, (and) incinerators.” These are the poisonous places where we source, make, and dispose of our plastics. All the processes involved with plastic —from fracking to incineration— are not just toxic, they also disproportionately end up in low-income communities and communities of color.

From A Year of No Garbage by Eva Schaub

Top Ten Terrible Truths About Plastic 

1. Plastic is not really recyclable. 

2. “Single-stream” recycling is a lie. 

3. “Compostable” plastics are pretty much a total lie (with one notable exception). 

4. “Extreme Recycling” Programs are pretty much a total lie too. 

5. Forget one giant ocean garbage patch; there are five

. 6. Plastic drives climate change. 

7. Plastic is racist.

8. Plastics do not break down— or go away—ever

. 9. Plastics are in our water, air, and food. Also our bloodstream, and the placenta of newborn babies. 

10. There aren’t seven kinds of plastic as recycling symbols indicate; there are tens of thousands, all largely untested for effects on human health

From The Year of No Garbage by Eva Schaub

"In an article for The Nation, journalist Jamie Lincoln Kitman writes that “The leaded gas adventurers have profitably polluted the world on a grand scale and, in the process, have provided a model for the asbestos, tobacco, pesticide and nuclear power industries, and other twentieth-century corporate bad actors, for evading clear evidence that their products are harmful by hiding behind the mantle of scientific uncertainty.”The plastics industry should be on the above list of “corporate bad actors” too, although you could argue that in a way, it already is. Because of course the “leaded gas adventurers” who played fast and loose with the health and well-being of millions of people in using lead as an additive in gas, are in many cases the very same companies, or their descendants, who are emphatically ramping up plastics production, all the while pushing “better recycling,”“personal responsibility,” and “gee whiz, plastic sure seems safe.

I have quoted more than I normally do in a post because I hope my readers will come to ponder her thoughts.

She offers lots of good tips, list useful resources and is very open about the challenges of the project including a section on plastic free hygiene products which her daughters had little enthusiasm for as well as a funny segment about getting a bidget.

Serial memoirist Eve O. Schaub lives with her family in Vermont and enjoys performing experiments on them so she can write about it.

"During 2011 Eve wrote a blog about her family’s attempt to live and eat for a year without any added sugar in their food, which became the book Year of No Sugar (Sourcebooks, 2014). It has since been translated into Chinese, Hebrew and French. She has been a guest on the Dr. Oz Show, and FOX and Friends, and has appeared in numerous print and online outlets. She considers not hyperventilating on national television one of her greatest accomplishments.

Her second book, Year of No Clutter, (Sourcebooks, 2017) revealed her deepest, darkest secret: clutter. In it, she struggles to transform herself from a self-described “clutter-gatherer” into a neat, organized person who can actually walk through every room of her house and does not feel the need to keep everything from childhood raincoats to cat fur. As you suspected, the family gets roped in on this one too.

Currently Schaub is working on Year of No Garbage, blogging about living all of the year 2020 without throwing anything away, at all. Ever. As you can imagine it was super-easy and nothing much to tell there, but nevertheless she is currently finalizing the manuscript for this third and final family adventure story and if you happen to be an interested publisher then you are her new best friend.

In addition to her books, Eve has written online for Hyperallergic, The Belladonna Comedy, Little Old Lady Comedy and in print for Vermont Life, Vermont Magazine, Everyday Health, and the Boston Globe Online. Also the New Yorker printed her letter once, so that was pretty cool. She holds a BA and BFA from Cornell University, and a MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology."

Eve imagines it would be fun to win several important awards. Her favorite word is antidisestablishmentarianism. She enjoys writing about herself in the third person. From www.eveschaub.com

Mel Ulm

The Reading Life

Tobacco: The Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization by Ian Gately - 2001-426 pages

 Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization by Ian Gately - 2001 - 426 Pages 

In October I read 1493: The World That Columbus Made by Charles Mann. Considered starting a Reading Life Project around books detailing the impact of contacts between North and South Africa with Asia, Europe, Australia and Africa. However for now this seemed too opened a project so I have abandoned the idea.  

One of the topics covered in Mann's essential book is the impact the spread of Tobacco from South America first to Virginia plantations in the 1700s than to Europe and from their worldwide. He details how the need for malaria resistant labourers resulted in replacing English indentured servants with West Africans, as slaves, who had a good bit of Immunity to malaria. He explains how this lead to increased warfare in Africa where tribes sought captives to sell to slave traders.

In his book Ian Gately traces the spread of near narcotic grip Tobacco soon had over Europe, Asia, especially Japan, Africa and the United States. In order to tell this story Gately does need to rely on a lot of historical background. The problem with this is that probably anyone who might be drawn to read his book will already know the history and will be bored by an elementary account of how the Spanish conquistadors took over the Empires of the Aztecs and Incas. Gately makes use of a lot of accounts of smoking customs in many places. He talks about how Tobacco was merchandised over the centuries throughout the world. He tries at times to be amusing. 

I ended up speed reading through the last half of the book.

Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization by Ian Gately - 2001 - 426 Pages 

In October I read 1493: The World That Columbus Made by Charles Mann. Considered starting a Reading Life Project around books detailing the impact of contacts between North and South Africa with Asia, Europe, Australia and Africa. However for now this seemed too opened a project so I have abandoned the idea.  

One of the topics covered in Mann's essential book is the impact the spread of Tobacco from South America first to Virginia plantations in the 1700s than to Europe and from their worldwide. He details how the need for malaria resistant labourers resulted in replacing English indentured servants with West Africans, as slaves, who had a good bit of Immunity to malaria. He explains how this lead to increased warfare in Africa where tribes sought captives to sell to slave traders.

In his book Ian Gately traces the spread of near narcotic grip Tobacco soon had over Europe, Asia, especially Japan, Africa and the United States. In order to tell this story Gately does need to rely on a lot of historical background. The problem with this is that probably anyone who might be drawn to read his book will already know the history and will be bored by an elementary account of how the Spanish conquistadors took over the Empires of the Aztecs and Incas. Gately makes use of a lot of accounts of smoking customs in many places. He talks about how Tobacco was merchandised over the centuries throughout the world. He tries at times to be amusing. 

I ended up speed reading through the last half of the book.

Revolutionary Russia:1891 to 1991 A History by Orlando Figes - 2014 - 336 Pages

 Revolutionary Russia:1891 to 1991 A History by Orlando Figes 

In October I read The Crimean War by Orlando Figes. I am very interested in Romonov era Russian History, especially the last days of the dynasty, so when his history of the Russian Revolution was on sale as a Kindle for $2.95 I acquired it. (It is now back up to $12.95.)

The central thesis of the work is that Russian History from 1891 up to 1991 can best be understood as a working out of radical changes brought to society by the Revolution.

Figes,as one would expect, lays out very well the huge social inequities that created the conditions that brought about the revolution. He shows how the completely incompetent leadership of Czar Nicholas during World War One, his marriage to a German Princess, the involvement of Rasputin and his belief in his divine right to rule greatly aided the arguments of anti-Tsarist ideologues. When peasants attempting a peaceful protests were gunned down by Cossacks the fate of the Romonovs was sealed. Figes goes into detail about the infighting between different Revolutionary groups, leading to the rule of Lenin, 1917 to 1924

Lenin wanted to create a Marxist state where there was no private property. Upon the ascension of Stalin to power (1924 to 1953) the government began the collectivation of farms owned by farms owned by Kulaks, rich peasants. Soon, for reasons Figes explains, this lead to a disastrous food short. In May of last year I read a highly regarded book by Anne Applebaum, Red Famine: Stalin's War on The Ukraine in which she shows that Stalin made a decision to take food from the Ukraine and divert it to Russia, thus preventing Russians from turning on the government. I was shocked by this from Figes:  

"In the reported words of Lazar Kaganovich, who oversaw collectivization and grain procurements in Ukraine, the death of a ‘few thousand kulaks’ would teach the other peasants ‘to work hard and understand the power of the government’.9 But no hard evidence has so far come to light of the regime’s intention to kill millions through famine, let alone of agenocide campaign against the Ukrainians. Many parts of Ukraine were ethnically mixed. There is no data to suggest that there was a policy of taking more grain from Ukrainian villages than from the Russians or other ethnic groups in the famine area. And Ukraine was not the only region to suffer terribly from the famine, which was almost as bad in Kazakhstan."

This is the polar opposite of Applebaum's very thoroughly documented conclusions.  

Figes made another remarkably inaccurate remark that undermined my reliance on his insights into Russian society:

"Russia is no longer an aggressive state. It does not start foreign wars. Economically it is a pale shadow of the powerhouse it was on the eve of the First World War. Seventy years of Communism ruined it. Yet the authoritarian state tradition has revived in Russia in a manner unexpected twenty years ago. This resurgence, based on Putin’s reclamation of the Soviet past, demands that we look again at Bolshevism—its antecedents and its legacies—in the long arc of history"

This is totally wrong, of course. Figes does provide a lot of information about the structure of government under Stalin.

I am glad I read this and would read other books by Figes if they were on sale. 

ORLANDO FIGES is the author of numerous books on Russia, including A People’s Tragedy, Natasha’s Dance, The Whisperers, and The Crimean War. His works have been translated into twenty-seven languages. A professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, and a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, Figes is the recipient of the Wolfson History Prize, the W. H. Smith Literary Award, the NCR Book Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among others.

Mel Ulm 

The History of the Philippines: From Indio Bravos to Filipinos by Luis H. Francia- 2014 - 495 Pages

 A History of the Philippines: From Indio Bravos to Filipinos by Luis H. Francia- 2014 - 495 Pages

I have read numerous books on the history of the Philippines. Luis H. Francia's is by far the best. 

There are reliable records for four main periods of Philippine history:

• Spanish rule (1521–1898)

• American rule (1898–1946)

• Japanese occupation (1941–1946)

• Philippines Self Rule - 1946 on

  Luis acknowledges that intelligent guess are that the first people arrived by boat. Their DNA as found in skeletal remains is similar to that of Australian Aborigines.

  The Negritos, a broad term for indigenous people of dark complexions, reached the Philippines around 25,000 years ago by a land bridge from the Asian mainland. Waves of Indonesians followed by sea from 3,000 BC, and Malays got a firm foothold around 200 BC, followed in later centuries by waves of Chinese settlers. Most of today’s Filipinos have grown out of intermarriages between indigenous and Malay people. Modern Filipino culture, including language and cuisine, was heavily influenced by the Malays, who also introduced arts, literature, and a system of government.

When the Spanish arrived in 1521 they destroyed all written documents they found, regarding them as Satanic.  

A few centuries before the Spanish reached the Philippines in the 16th century, Filipinos involved in trade had also met Arabs and Hindus from India, while the expanding Chinese population wielded considerable commercial power. 

Francia's opening chapter focuses on the arrival on  Palawan Island and Mindoro by Malaysians.  I found this very interesting. Much of the main island, now called Luzon, was covered by rain forests with many  independent settlements. I was surprised to learn that the Tagalog word "Barangay", referring to the smallest unit of government (metro Manila has over 800 Barangays) meant in circa 1400 the people who came with you in a boat and later their descendents. 

It took several decades for the Spanish to fully subdue Luzon. Francia details the circumstances under which Ferdinand Magellan was killed.  Catholic priests were sent to convert the people. The official sanctioned by the Pope rational for conquest was to "save the savages". Francia showed me how many priests were defacto rulers who exploited the people.  Local leaders were coopted  by the Spanish and given large land holdings in exchange for being puppets for the Spanish.  Most people were forced to work the lands of the wealthy. As time went on there were fewer and fewer small landowners working their farms.  The rich loaned them money with their land as collateral. Religious conversions were often forced. Many merged their prior faiths with Catholic beliefs.  The Philippines is very much a "mother centered" country even now which Francia attributes in part to the role of Mary as the mother of Jesus.

Mindoro Island residents were largely Muslims and never accepted Spanish rule.  To this day there is a movement for independence there.

In the 1890s the USA was developing into an international power.  Probably a war was provoked with Spain upon the blowing up of an American battleship, the Maine, in Havana, capital of Spanish owned  Cuba.  Francia acknowledges that precisely why the ship blew up is unknown.  The Americans claimed Spain attacked it while the Spanish suggested it was an accident.  The Spanish had no chance in the war.  America gained control of the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam. Cuba was given independence as a kind of America client state.

A war broke out in the south in resistance to American rule. American troops, many veterans of wars against Native Americans, were sent to crush the rebellion.  Francia estimates the death totals among natives as at least 250,000 and possibly as much as a million.  American troops killed not just rebels but women and children.  Francia gives a very informative account of the struggle for independence.

The Philippines became a major market for American goods.  The American attitude toward the country was patronising.  Throughout the period up until independence in 1946, residents did not really think of themselves as Filipinos but as residents of their area.  In 1946 there were nearly 200 different languages spoken in the archipelago of 7000 plus islands. Americans encouraged the teaching of English. Francia talks about the rise of Tagalog to become the official language.

The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 8, 1941 the Japanese bombed Manila and other parts of the Philippines.  Soon they invaded. Their pretence was to free the area from American rule.  Francia talks about the collaboration of Philippino officials with the Japanese as well as  the gorilla fighters who opposed them.  Ferdinand Marcos claimed to be a leaders of the gorilla forces but Francia says this was a lie.

Francia continues his history up to 2010, presenting a very clear and insightful analysis.

Luis H. Francia

"Luis Francia was born in the Philippines and earned his BA from Ateneo de Manila University. He immigrated to the US after college, moving to New York City. In the 1970s, he began working for the Village Voice, a newspaper he was associated with for more than 20 years. A journalist, an editor, and a teacher, Francia began to write poetry in workshops with famed Filipino writer Jose Garcia Villa at the New School.  Francia has published numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including Memories of Overdevelopment: Reviews and Essays of Two Decades (1998), A History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos (2010), and RE: Reflections, Reviews. Francia teaches at New York University, Hunter College CUNY, and the City University of Hong Kong. A regular contributor to newspapers such as the Voice, Francia writes an online column for the Manila paper Philippine Daily Inquirer. He lives in Queens, New York, with his wife, Midori Yamamura." From The Poetry Foundation.

Mel Ulm

Birds by Aristophenes- A Comedy- first preformed 414 BCE- translated by Aaron Poochigian- 2021 - plus a new Project Begins, Ancient Readings

 Since the start of The Reading Life in July of 2009 I have employed Reading Life Projects to help me structure the blog. My first two projects were on Japanese Literature and Katherine Mansfield. I now have projects on Irish Short Stories, early Australian Literature among others. Projects also give blog visitors a sense of what can be found on The Reading Life. Once I begin a project it is permanent.

Today I am initiating The Ancient Readings Project encompassing Literature from Sumeria, Greece, India, China, Rome as well as historical narratives on this era.

As of now I have as potential works for the projects, six plays by Senaca, eleven comedies by Aristophenes, New translations of Gilgamesh, Ovid, The Illiad by Homer, Virgil's Aneid as well as plays by Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. Hopefully I will be able to acquire modern translations of The Vedas and Buddhist Sutras. Perhaps portions of The Old Testament can be included. This is for me an ambitious project. (I am limited to works available as Kindle Editions)

"Not only was Aristophanes one of the greatest poets of antiquity but, in the words of Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary, “the greatest comic dramatist in world literature: by his side Molière seems dull and Shakespeare clownish.” - From New Translations of the Complete Plays by Paul Roche 

Aristophenes wrote 44 plays, as documented by Paul Roche, but only 11 survive still. Prior to today I have posted on two of his works. These are Lysistrata, his most famous work, and Women of the Assembly. Both these comedies have focus on the sex lives of Athenian women in very explicit language. Birds is very different.

The first work to be included going forward is Birds by Aristophenes.

Birds was first preformed in 414 BCE at Dionysius where it won second place. It is the longest of the 11 surviving works. Set in the wilderness outside of Athens, Pisthetaerus, an Athenian, persuades the birds in the area to form a great city in the sky, reclaiming their ancient place as Gods. 

Wikipedia has a decent plot summary so I will forgo that. I liked the satire of Athenian society, the way the birds were given personalities fitting their species. No doubt ornithologists would enjoy deciding which species are represented. Birds is a deep mockery of Greece's myth based religion.

I will next read his play Clouds.

Mel Ulm

James Edward Oglethorpe by Joyce Blackburn with a Preface by Eugenia Price-1970

 James Edward Oglethorpe by Joyce Blackburn with a Preface by Eugenia Price-1970

Five years ago, in consultation with Max u, it was decided every December there should be a post in Observation of the Birth Anniversary of our father, born on December 2, 1918 in a small then very undeveloped tiny town in south Georgia, Cairo.

Our Father served four years in the United States Army during World War Two.  He was a junior officer serving under General Douglas MacArthur.  He was stationed in New Guinea and shortly after the war in the Philippines.  For the initial observation in December of 2018 I posted on a wonderful book, Rampage MacArthur, Yamashita and The Battle of Manila by James M. Scott .  Shortly after I posted, the author, a great speaker, did a book tour in Manila.  My wife and I attended one of his talks. Afterwards we had a lovely conversation with Mr. Scott.

In 2019, I came upon a perfect book for the second annual birthday observation, War at the End of the World: Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight For New Guinea, 1942-1945 Book by James P Duffy.  

This year I decided to go in another direction, exploring the early history of Georgia as an English colony.  Our last name comes from a very ancient pre-Roman City in Germany.  (The City has a very famous cathedral and is the birthplace of Albert Einstein).  Because our last name is relatively uncommon we havd been able ascertain when and where our first American ancestor bearing our Last named arrived in tbe colonies, Savanah Georgia in 1755.

Born 1696. Into an old Family with royal connections

1722 - having inherited a large estate, he becomes a member of parliment 

He becomes interested in forming a colony in Georgia to be settled by inmates of debtor’s prisons and the unemployed.  The political appeal to the English government is as a buffer to keep Spanish intrusions from Florida 

In 1732 he departs for Georgia to serve as the first governor.

He will return to England in 1743 never to return.

He tried to keep cordial relationships with Native Americans and temporarily outlawed slavery.  He felt slaves would join forces with the Spanish.

Died: June 30, 1785, Cranham, Upminster, United Kingdom

“James Edward Oglethorpe turned his back on Oxford University, his family's Jacobite schemes, and a career as courtier to a prince to settle as an English country squire. But history was not to let him stay unnoticed. As a member of Parliament in the eighteenth century, Oglethorpe fought for debtors? rights and prison reform, and when he gained them, volunteered to found a new colony in America. Under his direction, settlements were established, strong bonds were formed with the Creek Indians, and the colony of Georgia flourished. He guided it during its formative years and protected it during war with Spain. That alone should have assured Oglethorpe of his place in history...but as he learned, politics and fortune are fickle. In this captivating biography, Joyce Blackburn details the career and life of this gallant gentleman, hero, visionary, and patriot.” From the publisher 

Joyce Blackburn

“Joyce was the only child of Reverend Leroy and Mrs. Audry Knight Blackburn. A graduate of Moody Institute in Chicago, taking a job as a broadcaster at WMBI after graduation. During her career there, she directed dramatic programs and presented her own series. Her recording of Suki and the Invisible Peacock lead to a contract for her first book of the same title and subsequent prize-winning titles for young readers have made her well-known among librarians and teachers. In 1996, the Suki books were reissued in a Silver Anniversary Edition and she was presented with the 1996 Governor's Award in the Humanities from the Georgia Humanities Council.

In the 1940's she became life long friends with writer Eugenia Price and in 1965 the two moved to St. Simons Island, Georgia where the two continued to write. There they established the Eugenia Price–Joyce Blackburn Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose proceeds fund grants and scholarships, support charitable organizations, and create programs that promote excellence in writing. 

Joyce was buried to the right of her life long friend, Eugenia Price.” From the publisher 

This is a young adult book.  I would suggest rather than spending $11.95 you just read the Wikipedia article 

The Reading Life Review - November- 2022

 

The Reading Life Review - November 2022

The Reading Life is a multicultural

book blog, committed to Literary Globalism 

   Short Stories, Irish literature, Classics, Modern Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, The Japanese Novel, Post Colonial Asian Fiction, The Legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and quality Historical Novels are Among our Interests.  Narrative non-fiction also is of importance.

Blog Stats 

Pages Views as of December 1, 2022 - 6,840, 353

Posts currently online 4131

Home Countries of November Readers

1. USA

2. The Philippines 

3. France

4. India

5. Isreal 

6. Canada 

7. Germany

8. The United Kingdom 

9. Russia

10. Indonesia 

Three of the eight authors featured were women, five men. Four living, four not. Six were authors previously featured, two were new to me writers.

Home Lands of Authors

1. USA - 3

2. Ireland- 1

3. England- 1

4. Greece - 1

5. Pakistan- 1

6. Russia - 1

The ten most viewed posts in November were all on short stories

Future Plans

 I hope to initiate three new reading life projects in December. One on Ancient Literature and history. Another on the impact of the Columbine Exchange. A third one will be on authors included in the British Library Women Writers Books. I will do individual posts detailing these later in December.

Pangaea post