​WASTED

How We Squander Time, Money, and Natural Resources and What We Can Do About It

We live in a world full of waste in many forms, from fast fashion to wasted time and potential. Yet when most people think of waste, they only think of the tangible, like plastic straws and garbage strewn across sidewalks. In WASTED (6/1/2021), Byron Reese and Scott Hoffman provide an insightful exploration of a ubiquitous issue, and encourage readers to think more critically about waste in all of its manifestations—seen and unseen—and how to reduce it to improve our cultural, economic, and environmental wellbeing. WASTED is a fascinating series of extensively researched—and often counterintuitive—pieces on waste in our lives. It affects the Earth we live on, the businesses we run, the products we buy, and the lives we live. Reese and Hoffman delve deep into the ways science, businesses, and human behavior create different forms of waste, and how a deeper understanding can lead us toward a world with far less waste—or no waste at all. Along the way, they raise questions from the quotidian to the abstract including.

• Do humans really inhale or consume an average of 100,000 pieces of plastic per year?
• How are the Dutch able to grow tomatoes with 19% of the water and 3% of the chemicals used in US agricultural production?
• Why is it 80 percent of donated clothes end up in landfills and the apparel industry’s emissions are roughly triple that of the entire aviation industry?
• Could global hunger be completely eliminated for the annual cost of about a hundred $100 billion dollars, a sum just under what we collectively spend on pet food? Yes it could.

Ultimately, the question of reducing waste is philosophical and complex. While Reese and Hoffman don’t promise easy answers or shame readers into thinking a perfectly waste-free lifestyle is possible, they promise to help readers understand the questions at play and give actionable steps where they can. As the authors decipher issues they simultaneously provide insights into solutions – mostly technology-driven – that could potentially drive down waste as well. A powerful and compelling thought experiment, WASTED will educate and inspire environmentalists, scientists, business leaders, technologists, and consumers alike.