All That Trash by Meghan McCarthy - ESSENTIAL

McCarthy, Meghan All That Trash: The Story of the 1987 Garbage Barge and Our Problem With Stuff.  PICTURE BOOK/NON-FICTION.  Simon, 2018.  $18.  9781481477529.

In 1987, a waste contractor from Alabama was going to make some money by taking garbage from New York and dumping it in North Carolina.  But North Carolina didn’t want the garbage, and neither did the other states he tried – including Alabama – and several countries, for that matter.  It took five months of wandering before the garbage on the barge found a permanent home.

You’d like to think that since that time we’ve become better at recycling and disposing of our garbage, but unfortunately that is just not true.  The story is pretty complicated, but it would be a great part of any unit on garbage or recycling at any grade level.

EL, MS, HS - ESSENTIAL.  Cindy, Library Teacher