Waste Wars

Dirty Deals, International Rivalries and the Scandalous Afterlife of Rubbish

By: Alexander Clapp

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Paperback | 12 February 2026 | Edition Number 1

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Paperback

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19.7 x 12.9 x 2.8

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'Jaw-dropping' The Economist
'A mind-altering and unforgettable read' Adam Tooze
'If you wish to know how the world really works, read this book' Misha Glenny
A globe-trotting investigation into the catastrophic reality of the multi-billion-dollar global garbage trade.

Dumps and landfills around the world are overflowing. The millions of tonnes of garbage generated every day have given rise to waste wars, cons and cover ups across thousands of miles and multiple oceans. And few people have any idea they're happening.

Roaming across five continents, Alexander Clapp delves deep inside the world of Javanese recycling gangsters, cruise ship dismantlers in the Aegean, Tanzanian plastic pickers, whistle-blowing environmentalists in the jungles of Guatemala, and a community of Ghanaian boys who burn Western cellphones and televisions for cents an hour. He reveals how most of our trash actually lives a secret second life, getting shipped, smuggled or dumped from one country onto another, with devastating consequences for the poorest nations of the world.

Waste Wars is a jaw-dropping expose of how and why, for the last forty years, our garbage has spawned a massive global black market, one that offloads our consumption footprints onto distant continents, pristine landscapes, and unsuspecting populations.

Industry Reviews

Jaw-dropping

A mind-altering and unforgettable read, Clapp has written an essential and deeply disturbing book

Always engagingly written with jaw-dropping anthropological detail . . . If you wish to know how the world really works, read this book

Horrifying . . . I've read books that have made me tearful, nauseous and aroused, but never one that made me feel the acrid taste of burning plastic at the back of my throat

Out of sight, out of mind. Waste Wars, however, puts the picture very much into your mind, and it's hard to imagine any reasonably affluent Western reader . . . reading this book and not having their conception of the world fundamentally changed

A witty and brave account of Clapp's journey into the underbelly of modern life . . . Clapp's great book somehow leaves you awe-inspired by the sheer outrageousness of the human ingenuity that has created this toxic mess

Briskly paced and filled with colorful and dubious characters worthy of the true crime book it is . . . A quintessential story of deviant globalization

Clapp has performed an important and courageous service by exposing the workings of this furtive activity to sunlight

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