Product Description

Rubbish is arguably Britain's most pressing environmental concern. Challenging and controversial, this is a rigorous examination of the problems of waste in the UK and the efficacy of the public and private initiatives designed to forestall a crisis fast ballooning into catastrophe

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #194849 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 389 pages

Ben Elton
"Be scared. Be very scared. But be sure to read this book"

Sarah Broadhurst in the Bookseller 25 Feb 2005
'I believe this is one of the most important books of the year...highly fascinating, totally absorbing, compulsively readable.'

John Carey, Sunday Times, 05 June 2005
Girling's book manages to be compulsively readable and often hilarious, as well as important.

Customer Reviews

A long hard look at our disposable culture
From the write-up you might think this is a book about rubbish, that is, landfill and waste management. And it is, in part, but it's much more than that. Richard Girling looks at waste in the broadest possible terms, from packaging to nuclear energy to bad architecture, television and even red tape. It's passionately argued, highly informative, and even when dealing with the infuriating, surprisingly entertaining. Highly recommended.

A sound book that slightly let itself down in places
I would have given this book 3 and a half stars if I could. On the one hand it was well-researched and very informative, on a range of subjects from the history of public health in England, to waste disposal technology. However, what could have been an excellent book became only good because of a few faults.

At times the text was quite episodic in nature, and it could usefully have been split into more than its ten chapters. But this was only a problem in that there were times when a rational argument, having been well built up, was then undermined by what appeared to be the search for a punchy phrase or a headline. Although Girling does have a very good line in similies, sometimes the attempt to add bite destracts from credibility - for example, he argues that to reduce the compliance period for a particular piece of legislation from 18 years to 7 is 'hardly amounted to fiery breath on the dumpers' necks'. (P183) Correct, but it does cut the compliance period by more than half, so is still significant, but to say so didn't seem dramatic enough to Girling. I don't know whether the venom and passion with which he argues comes from genuine conviction (probably) or a background in feature writing which demands that a point be made very quickly compared to a full-length book. But either way, occasionally it does him few favours.

More seriously, I was concerned about some of the academic balance of the book. As a small but indicative example, methane gas is quoted at different points in the book as having an impact of twenty AND twenty-one times as high as carbon dioxide as a 'greenhouse gas'. Which is it? It's a small difference, but does make me wonder about how thoroughly the many other statistics throughout the book have been validated. I was also, especially considering the volume of facts and statistics, disappointed with the index, which is a bit thin, for example listing 'methane' only once, despite being discussed twice in different chapters.) Another doubt I have about the rigour of some of the content is that Girling appears to reply heavily on a relatively few sources. I say 'appears to' because very few of his quotations are referenced. However, some individuals are quoted so often, on so many subjects, that it almost begins to feel like they have been given free reign to use the book as a mouthpiece for themselves and their industry or trade association.

Finally, while I don't disagree with his argument (repeated on a number of different topics) that many problems have been caused or exacerbated by government inertia, Girling appears to expect government to do all the work and thinking behind problems, and believe that it's unreasonable to expect the waste management industry to take any risk without every detail being spelled out for them by government. This is a utopian expectation and unrealistic. The interpretation of even relatively simple matters of law must often be clarified by cases before courts rather than in the legislation itself, and the subjects covered in this book are far from simple!

In one case (the management of the disposal of fridges) he criticises one department for not deciding to plan to deal with both of only 2 possible interpretations of a piece of legislation. This is fair criticism, but if it's reasonable for government to be prudent then why should we not expect the same contingency planning from the waste management industry?

Overall, a very interesting and often informative book that I'm certainly glad to have read. But unfortunately it didn't make as unarguable a case as it might have done.

Rubbish? I don't think so...
I first picked this book up in relation to my university course but i was surprised at how wide ranging and informative it is. The title would suggest that the book focuses on rubbish but the book covers a wide range of topics from planning and housing developments to supermarket packaging through to water supply, sewage and power supply and of course rubbish and recycling.

An informative book, with a good balance of detailed facts to support his arguements and probably the greatest asset is how up to date it is in relation to the figures and statistics he uses.

A good book for those interested or involved in environmental management and planning or for those with a keen interest in the state of the UK environment.