Waste wars: the wild afterlife of your trash

Introduction: Mayhem in Mesopotamia

Part one: Toxic topics. Banana republic

The chemical century

Cash for trash

Debt and development

Merchants of disease

Guns and germs

Trash ash odyssey

Rising up

American exceptionalism

The waste trade strikes back

Part two: E-Waste on the Odaw. State and slum

To the quays of Tema

Treasure

Logging on

Technological tinkering

The flexible mine

Start-up cesspools

A new agbogbloshie?

Going fishing

Medical things

Part three: Aegean abomination. Global junk heap

Shipping out

Into the heart of Anatolia

Deadly business

Scrap shepherds

Scrap nation

At Europe's edge

Greeks bearing gifts

Coming home

Part four: Pacific plastic. A long journey

Plastification

The greatest miracle yet

One-man multinational

Plastic China

Mad scramble

A trash chief

A trash scion

Back to the Pacific

Conclusion: Whither waste?

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index.