Call it Trash, Garbage, Refuse, Discards, Waste, Rubbish or Scraps.
If it could talk, it would speak volumes. Volumes about what we buy, how long we keep things, how easy it is to get our stuff repaired or find it new homes. If trash could talk, it would also speak volumes about why we should avoid generating it all in the first place.
I’m Jacquie Ottman. One of the reasons why I founded WeHateToWaste.com is because I’m obsessed with eradicating trash and ending wastefulness. As you know from reading the many posts that we have been sharing up here since April 2012, I celebrate creativity, resourcefulness and ingenuity. I live a trash-free life, joyfully and soulfully. Now I’m delighted to talk even more trash together with the readers and visitors to WeHateToWaste.com, via the publication of my new book.
Introducing If Trash Could Talk: Poems, Stories and Musings
I wrote If Trash Could Talk for YOU. Anyone and everyone who’s ever plucked a board game from the trash, taken home a doggie bag, rummaged through a vintage sale, or unabashedly served a leftover to guests.
If Trash Could Talk reflects my life spent to date dumpster-diving and flattening toothpaste tubes, turning Palmolive liquid bottles upside down, and eating every last bite. It reflects my laser-focused observation of trash culture in my hometown of NYC.
I’ll bet that you will be amused, delighted, intrigued, challenged, empowered, energized, and creatively provoked by each of the 60 entries in the book.
What You’ll Find in If Trash Could Talk
Grab a copy and pick up some new ideas to use up, pass along, recycle, upcycle, swap, barter, repurpose, fix, mend and more. Be prepared to smile, laugh, get courageous — and recognize yourself in its pages. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself wanting to immediately share its contents with friends, family and the neighbor down the hall.
Grab a Copy Today
Click here to grab a copy on Amazon.com in paperback or (trash-free) Kindle version.
Learn more at this special page we created on WeHateToWaste.com: LINK HERE
Member of the media? Read the Press Release: HERE
It was an honor to work on this book! Would recommend for anyone and everyone!
Sounds super interesting! How can we as a society change habits that for so many of us are unconscious decisions?
I completely agree with you and often question my own habits in terms of trash and waste. I think you would really like Marie Kondos philosophy about only keeping objects or items that “Spark Joy”. Although her ideas do not align directly with environmental benefits, she recommends effective ways to reduce waste and get rid of items that people typically hoard or hold on to. Would be interesting to see her take on the environmental benefits of her ideas. Less is always more.
I was so excited when I got a hold of this book. I read it in no time at all and loved every second of it. I showed it to my younger brother and he got a kick out of “Cheese Cubes.” I consider myself a poet and I found my style to be very similar to Jacquie’s. I would love to be able to get her to come do a reading at my school, will definitely have to reach out!
Americans live such wasteful lifestyles. To see a book that turns those experiences into descriptive literature is an amazing way to help us realize just how much we waste. Nearly everything we own will at one point become waste. How we manage, reuse, and repurpose it will determine the future of our planet. Trash culture is everything; we are past due for a wake up call to realize that these items do not end their useful lifecycle after just one use.
Only if those bags could talk. It really breaks my heart see trash bags go to their death. Just think what those bags are thinking as their fate comes. It need to stop.