PREFACE: THE DONATION DOOR
1. Arnold, Jeanne F., Anthony P. Graesch, Enzo Ragazzini, and Elinor Ochs. Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2012.
2. Kaza, Slipa, Lisa Yao, Perinaz Bhada-Tata, and Frank Van Woerden. What a Waste 2.0: A Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management to 2050. Urban Development Series. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2018.
CHAPTER 1: EMPTY THE NEST
1. Epstein, Reid J. “Liberals Eat Here. Conservatives Eat There.” Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2014. https://
2. Oxfam. “3.6 Billion Clothes Left Unworn in the Nation’s Wardrobes, Survey Finds.” https://
3. The history of Anglo-American consumption in this section relies on Strasser, Susan. Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash. New York: Henry Holt, 1999.
CHAPTER 2: DECLUTTERING
1. This passage and the following section rely on Siniawer, Eiko Maruko. Waste: Consuming Postwar Japan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018.
2. Ibid., 32.
3. Ibid., 35.
4. Ibid., 203.
CHAPTER 3: THE FLOOD
1. This history is laid out in Susan Strasser’s landmark Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash. New York: Henry Holt, 1999. I relied on it while writing this chapter.
2. Ellen MacArthur Foundation. A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning Fashion’s Future, 19. 2017. http://
3. thredUP. Resale Report, 2018. https://
CHAPTER 4: THE GOOD STUFF
1. Houston Public Media Staff. “Are Millennials Behind Price Drop in Houston Antiques?” Houston Public Media, June 6, 2017. https://
CHAPTER 5: DANSHARI
1. For the following translation and discussion of danshari, I rely on Siniawer, Eiko Maruko. Waste: Consuming Postwar Japan, 266–78. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018.
CHAPTER 7: FRAYED BELOW THE STITCH
1. Farrell, Sean. “We’ve Hit Peak Home Furnishings, Says Ikea Boss.” Guardian, January 18, 2016. https://
2. Frazer, G. “Used Clothing Donations and Apparel Production in Africa.” Economic Journal 118, no. 532 (October 2008): 1764–84.
3. For more on this important topic, see Jerven, Morton. Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics, and What to Do About It. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013.
4. The best analysis of the many complicated factors that contributed to the decline of African textiles and clothing is Brooks, A., and D. Simon. “Unraveling the Relationships Between Used-Clothing Imports and the Decline of African Clothing Industries.” Development and Change 43, no. 6 (September 2012): 1265–90. https://
5. Opoku, Darko. “Small-Scale Ghanaian Miners and the Textiles and Garment Industry in the Age of Chinese Economic Onslaught.” In Challenges to African Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century (United Kingdom: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018), 147–78.
6. Yebo, Yeepoka. “Chinese Counterfeits Leave Ghanaian Textiles Hanging by a Thread.” Christian Science Monitor, May 31, 2015. https://
7. Foster, Rosina. “National Friday Wear Program Creating Jobs for the Chinese.” 3News.com, January 25, 2017. https://
8. Burgis, Tom. “Nigeria Unraveled.” Financial Times, February 13, 2015. https://
9. Mallett, Whitney. “Inside the Massive Rag Yards That Wring Money Out of Your Discarded Clothes.” New Republic, August 18, 2015. https://
CHAPTER 9: ENOUGH TO SELL
1. For more on this topic, see Catlin, Jesse R., and Yitong Wang. “Recycling Gone Bad: When the Option to Recycle Increases Resource Consumption.” Journal of Consumer Psychology 23, no. 1 (January 2013): 122–27. https://
2. Bank of America. “Homebuyer Insights Report,” 2018. https://
3. Accel and Qualtrics. “The Myth of the ‘Don’t-Own’ Economy.” Millennial Study, 2017. https://
4. Ranzini, Giulia, Gemma Newlands, Guido Anselmi, Alberta Andreotti, Thomas Eichhorn, Michael Etter, Christian Hoffmann, Sebastian Jürss, and Christoph Lutz. “Millennials and the Sharing Economy: European Perspectives,” (October 30, 2017). http://
CHAPTER 10: AND IT LASTS FOREVER
1. Consumer Reports. “Are Secondhand Car Seats Safe?” January 28, 2017. https://
2. Krafft, Maria. “Köp Gärna Begagnad Bilbarnstol.” Trfiksäkerhetsbloggen, September 25, 2009. http://
3. The history of lightbulb lifespan engineering is laid out in very readable form by MacKinnon, J. B. “The L.E.D. Quandary: Why There’s No Such Thing as ‘Built to Last.’ ” New Yorker, July 14, 2016. https://
4. Slade, Giles. Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America, 45. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
5. For more on the scale of the problem, and how it was ultimately resolved, see chapter 10 of Junkyard Planet.
6. Dupre, Mikael, Mathieu Jahnich, Valeria Ramirez, Gaelle Boulbry, and Emilie Ferreira. The Influence of Lifespan Labelling on Consumers. Brussels: European Economic and Social Committee, 2016.
7. The textile-related data in this paragraph is derived from Ellen MacArthur Foundation. A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning Fashion’s Future, 2017. http://
8. Prakash, S., G. Dehoust, M. Gsell, T. Schleicher, and R. Stamminger. “On the Impact of the Service Life of Products on Their Environmental Impact (Creation of an Information Basis and Development of Strategies Against Obsolescence).” German Federal Environment Agency, 2016.
9. Waste and Resources Action Programme. “Switched On to Value: Why Extending Appliance and Consumer Product Lifetimes and Trading Used Products Can Benefit Consumers, Retailers, and the Environment,” 2014. Retrieved from www
10. This quote and account are from the web-based narrative of Ol’ Lonely’s evolution, published on the website Character, the marketing agency hired to consult on the character’s transformation: http://
11. Janeway, Kimberly. “How to Make Your Washer and Dryer Last.” Consumer Reports, 2018. https://
12. Dupre et al. The Influence of Lifespan Labelling on Consumers; and Artinger, Sabrina, Susanne Baltes, Christian Jarchow, Malte Petersen, and Andrea Schneider. Lifespan Label for Electrical Products. Berlin: Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, 2017.
CHAPTER 11: A RICH PERSON’S BROKEN THING
1. These figures are based on interviews with several Northern Region electronics repairmen and traders, including Ibrahim Alhassan, Karim Zachariah (in Tamale), and Kamal Chendiba (also in Tamale). For a national and regional perspective, I am heavily indebted to Awudu Pan of Kumasi. Pan is a leader in that city’s sprawling television repair industry and a key organizer of its nascent trade association.
2. Strasser, Susan. Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash, 22. New York: Henry Holt, 1999.
3. Brignall, Miles. “ ‘Error 53’ Fury Mounts as Apple Software Update Threatens to Kill Your iPhone 6.” Guardian, February 5, 2016. https://
4. Koebler, Jason. “Apple Sued an Independent iPhone Repair Shop Owner and Lost.” Motherboard, April 13, 2018. https://
5. Shaer, Matthew. “The Pentalobe Screws Saga: How Apple Locked Up Your iPhone 4.” Christian Science Monitor, January 21, 2011. https://
6. Cook, Tim. “A Letter from Tim Cook to Apple Investors,” January 2, 2019. https://
7. Chapter 6 of Junkyard Planet includes a profile of Net Peripheral, a now-defunct Malaysian television refurbishment company that was once one of Robin’s key customers.
8. The 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act prohibits manufacturers from placing repair restrictions on a device for which it offers a warranty. In other words, a Samsung Galaxy Note consumer can’t lose a warranty if a corner repair shop replaces a cracked screen. In 2018, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission went so far as to warn several companies, including Microsoft, Hyundai, and Sony, that their “warranty void” stickers are illegal.
CHAPTER 12: MORE SUITCASES
1. Amoyaw-Osei, Yaw, Obed Opuku Agyekum, John A. Pwamang, Esther Mueller, Raphael Fasko, and Mathias Schluep. “Ghana e-Waste Country Assessment.” Secretariat of the Basel Convention, March 2011. http://
2. Adjei, Asare. “Life in Sodom and Gomorrah: The World’s Largest Digital Dump.” Guardian, April 29, 2014. https://
3. CBC Radio. “The World’s Largest e-Waste Dump Is Also Home to a Vibrant Community.” CBC Radio, November 3, 2018. https://
4. McElvaney, Kevin. “Ghana’s e-Waste Magnet.” Al Jazeera, February 12, 2014. https://
5. Frontline. “Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground.” PBS, June 23, 2009. http://
6. Akese, Grace A., and Peter C. Little. “Electronic Waste and the Environmental Justice Challenge in Agbogbloshie.” Environmental Justice 11, no. 2 (2018): 77–83.
7. Mathias Schluep, Andreas Manhart, Oladele Osibanjo, David Rochat, Nancy Isarin, and Esther Mueller. “Where Are WEEE in Africa? Findings from the Basel Convention E-Waste Africa Programme.” Secretariat of the Basel Convention, December 2011.
8. Ellen MacArthur Foundation. A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning Fashion’s Future, 2017. http://
9. This account of the Joe Benson prosecution relies heavily on documents collected and shared with me by Robin Ingenthron and, equally important, the detailed account and analysis of the case offered in Lepawsky, Josh. Reassembling Rubbish: Worlding Electronic Waste, 49–67. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2018.
10. Puckett, Jim, Chris Brandt, and Hayley Palmer. Holes in the Circular Economy: WEEE Leakage from Europe, 32. Basel Action Network, 2019. http://
11. Several organizations and individuals are working hard to bring modern waste management to the developing world. Among the best is WasteAid, a U.K.-based nongovernmental organization that’s campaigning to increase waste management funding to 3 percent of international aid spending. It also helps communities obtain waste management systems.
12. Burrell, Jenna. “What Environmentalists Get Wrong About e-Waste in Africa.” Berkeley Blog, September 1, 2016. https://