Green Reads with Recycle Utah

The Park City Library encourages those interested in learning more about sustainability and environmental awareness at home and in our community to explore more with Green Reads. Every season, the Library selects a book to read and discuss those topics together. Don’t have the time to read the book? No worries – there is a recommended podcast and article to read instead.

Our fall topic, with Recycle Utah, is “Let’s Get Trashed” featuring Year of No Garbage: Recycling Lies, Plastic Problems, and One Woman’s Trashy Journey to Zero Waste by Eve O. Schaub.

If you are curious, but don’t have time to read a book… read the article: How Plastics Are Poisoning Us | The New Yorker.

If you only have 30 minutes and prefer to listen… listen to this podcast from The Prairie Homestead: Season 12: Episode 7: A Year of No Garbage… (Really!).

Book synopsis:
In this book Eve O. Schaub, humorist and stunt memoirist extraordinaire, tackles her most difficult challenge to date: garbage. Convincing her husband and two daughters to go along with her, Schaub attempts the seemingly impossible: living in the modern world without creating any trash at all. For an entire year. And- as it turns out- during a pandemic.
In the process, Schaub learns some startling things: that modern recycling is broken, and single stream recycling is a lie. That flushable wipes aren’t flushable and compostables aren’t compostable. That plastic drives climate change, fosters racism, and is poisoning the environment and our bodies at alarming rates, as microplastics are being found everywhere, from the top of Mount Everest to the placenta of unborn babies.

If you’ve ever thought twice about that plastic straw in your drink, you’re gonna want to read this book.