Fascinating and thought-provoking. Hopefully it'll also be action provoking!

This very readable non-fiction exploration of the world of reuse, repurpose and sharing is both meaningful and enjoyable. Want to know where that old iPhone you donated to Goodwill ended up? Find out here. Learn why importers in Ghana or India like Canadian fashion clothes better than American ones. See why well-intentioned laws pushed by Greenpeace actually harm the environment and are arguably racist. Discover the complexities of the rag business. I found it all fascinating. Minter writes well. He brings to life a number of colorful characters and reveals how some unlikely spots around the globe are important to the secondhand business, places like Missisauga, Ontario; Petaling Jaya, Malaysia; Newark, New Jersey; Lebanon, Tennessee; and Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Here you can learn the difference between an antique, a collectible, and junk. Find out the devious tricks manufacturers use to make it difficult or impossible to fix their products, thus forcing people to buy new ones, and how enterprising entrepreneurs are defeating those techniques.

Minter’s first book, Junkyard Planet, dealt with recycling and waste disposal. This does not, except a bit tangentially. It is all about how things after a first use can be, and often are, acquired and put to a second use, or even third and fourth and fifth. This book will appeal to those who are environmentally conscious and those who just like to learn new stuff not written about elsewhere.

I’m not a hoarder - maybe that’s why this book appealed to me? I love getting rid of things and I don’t love shopping so there isn’t much to get rid of. I have what I want and need and if I don’t have it, I don’t need it. And my relatives look in my closets and get mad. Where’s your stuff? They ask. I think they just want to justify their walk-in closet full of unworn items that don’t fit them, they never wear, but bought because they were a good deal. And because they have so much stuff, they can never find anything.

Meantime, I wear the same thing over and over again and probably look as poor as I am to them. So there are positives and negatives to being minimalist/poor vs. keeping the economy booming by hoarding.

Either way, there comes a time when everyone’s stuff is going somewhere else. Where does it go? When you move, when you die, when you move to a smaller place, what happens to those treasures and heirlooms you think are worth something?

This book is a beautiful journey following our stuff. The author comes in from a variety of angles into our lives, ultimately making you think about what you value and why. Even the most materialistic person is going to question why they have what they have, if “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” or if one man’s trash is just another man’s trash. The stories follow possessions and clothing, so much clothing, through their life cycle on the planet. It’s not just us consumer-obsessed Americans; it’s everyone who has more than enough who has, ultimately, too much.

Not only will you question your values, your purchases, your decisions, your choices, and your assumptions, but you will get to enjoy other people working hard jobs dealing with other people’s possessions. You get to see what happens to all that stuff you donate. You get to see what happens to stuff that is too useless in one country and yet valuable in another, and why. (Why? I will never understand the value of large heavy oak furniture, but maybe you will.)

It’s such a bright, fun read. And even if you’re not interested in stuff, or old furniture an clothing, you live here on earth. All that stuff goes somewhere. And more importantly, there are a lot of people who work incredibly hard to find value in that useless junk who don’t get paid enough to make the world a little less junky.

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