Reading Junkyard Planet
Very early in my time here in China, I made the online (and eventual real-life) acquaintance of Adam Minter, a Shanghai-based journalist. I emailed him about his cover story that had been in the Atlantic about the Bishop Jin and the Catholic Church in Shanghai, surprised yet grateful to read something that reflected my experience with my involvement with the Church in Shenzhen.
I was unfamiliar with Adam's usual beat, scrap and recycling, but over the last six years I've learned so much in reading his blog and other pieces featured on the Atlantic's website. Two years ago when he officially announced that he was working on a book about the global scrap trade, I was oddly excited. I had already learned more than I ever had realized I wanted to know about scrap from reading his blog; what would a whole book be like?
More after the jump
While I was reading Junkyard Planet, my common reaction was, Wow. I had no idea. I had no idea how much money moved around in the world's scrap trade and how many millionaires and billionaires the industry has created. I had no idea how much beyond household recyclables was sought after by scrap traders. I had no idea how much some countries' (like China) manufacturing and construction sectors depend on recycling or, rather, reclaiming, base metals and materials from the stuff Americans and Europeans toss.
That last one was perhaps the biggest revelation for me. As much as the world has been dazzled by China's economic growth these last few decades, an under-appreciated contributor to this being possible has been the scrap trade. While virgin raw materials are in short supply (either because of actual capacity limits or economic limits), reclaimed and reprocessed materials, like steel or aluminum or copper or plastic, can quickly be derived from sources with relatively little value. In fact, what I find so fascinating (on top of all the other fascinating bits) is that the yields from recycling often are even better than from mining. One of the most dramatic examples Adam gives is the gold that can be found in scrapped cell phones. One ton of mobile phones can yield 10 ounces of gold, much more than a ton of high grade ore can (Kindle location 3281). He gives other similar examples, like how every pound of recycled aluminum is five pounds of bauxite that does not need to be mined, and yet consumes only eight percent of the energy to produce (3998).
Not only a revelatory book about scrap, Junkyard Planet is good read. Adam comes from a scrap-dealing family, four generations back. He grew up in the industry and worked in his family's scrap yard occasionally before he became a writer. Occasionally he peppers the narrative of his book with snippets from his own family, the smells and sounds of scrap yards everywhere a chance for him to relish a warm memory of his grandmother. Adam has an affection for the scrap industry that comes across when he describes the dignity of scrap work or populates the book with interesting people in the trade. This affection does not stop him from seeing the environmental problems that do exist, but it allows him to balance some of those issues with some of the good that does result.
The book benefits most from Adam's long-time perspective on the scrap industry. In addition to being a child of scrap, he has covered it as his primary journalism beat for more than ten years. That has allowed him to see business cycles between good and bad and back to good, and such a breadth of materials and processes, and such a great range of characters. I've read similarly categorized books that suffer from terrible myopia, mostly because the writer, based on limited experience, was anxious to write an exposé. Junkyard Planet is terrific in giving a wide-angle understanding of the world's junk trade while providing macro-lens views of the world's scrap yards.
Even though Junkyard Planet is about the global scrap industry, it can't avoid the "China Book" label. I think Adam is fine with that. Since that is the case, I rank this among my favorite China books, like Factory Girls. Both Adam and Leslie Chang have produced books that could have been exposé, but instead provide eye-opening accounts of subjects that deserve full honesty to recognize the dignity of the people involved.
I was unfamiliar with Adam's usual beat, scrap and recycling, but over the last six years I've learned so much in reading his blog and other pieces featured on the Atlantic's website. Two years ago when he officially announced that he was working on a book about the global scrap trade, I was oddly excited. I had already learned more than I ever had realized I wanted to know about scrap from reading his blog; what would a whole book be like?
More after the jump
While I was reading Junkyard Planet, my common reaction was, Wow. I had no idea. I had no idea how much money moved around in the world's scrap trade and how many millionaires and billionaires the industry has created. I had no idea how much beyond household recyclables was sought after by scrap traders. I had no idea how much some countries' (like China) manufacturing and construction sectors depend on recycling or, rather, reclaiming, base metals and materials from the stuff Americans and Europeans toss.
That last one was perhaps the biggest revelation for me. As much as the world has been dazzled by China's economic growth these last few decades, an under-appreciated contributor to this being possible has been the scrap trade. While virgin raw materials are in short supply (either because of actual capacity limits or economic limits), reclaimed and reprocessed materials, like steel or aluminum or copper or plastic, can quickly be derived from sources with relatively little value. In fact, what I find so fascinating (on top of all the other fascinating bits) is that the yields from recycling often are even better than from mining. One of the most dramatic examples Adam gives is the gold that can be found in scrapped cell phones. One ton of mobile phones can yield 10 ounces of gold, much more than a ton of high grade ore can (Kindle location 3281). He gives other similar examples, like how every pound of recycled aluminum is five pounds of bauxite that does not need to be mined, and yet consumes only eight percent of the energy to produce (3998).
Not only a revelatory book about scrap, Junkyard Planet is good read. Adam comes from a scrap-dealing family, four generations back. He grew up in the industry and worked in his family's scrap yard occasionally before he became a writer. Occasionally he peppers the narrative of his book with snippets from his own family, the smells and sounds of scrap yards everywhere a chance for him to relish a warm memory of his grandmother. Adam has an affection for the scrap industry that comes across when he describes the dignity of scrap work or populates the book with interesting people in the trade. This affection does not stop him from seeing the environmental problems that do exist, but it allows him to balance some of those issues with some of the good that does result.
The book benefits most from Adam's long-time perspective on the scrap industry. In addition to being a child of scrap, he has covered it as his primary journalism beat for more than ten years. That has allowed him to see business cycles between good and bad and back to good, and such a breadth of materials and processes, and such a great range of characters. I've read similarly categorized books that suffer from terrible myopia, mostly because the writer, based on limited experience, was anxious to write an exposé. Junkyard Planet is terrific in giving a wide-angle understanding of the world's junk trade while providing macro-lens views of the world's scrap yards.
Even though Junkyard Planet is about the global scrap industry, it can't avoid the "China Book" label. I think Adam is fine with that. Since that is the case, I rank this among my favorite China books, like Factory Girls. Both Adam and Leslie Chang have produced books that could have been exposé, but instead provide eye-opening accounts of subjects that deserve full honesty to recognize the dignity of the people involved.
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