Waste

by Catherine Coleman Flowers

First published 2020

Catherine Flowers grew up in Alabama's "Bloody Lowndes," a region scarred by racism. Now she wages a new battle: ensuring the rural poor can dispose of waste with dignity. Flowers reveals systemic injustice that traps families in Third World squalor, from Appalachia to Native reservations. Her inspiring journey transforms her from student organizer to environmental justice champion at the Equal Justice Initiative. As climate change worsens, her fight against America's "dirty secret" becomes ever more urgent.

Genres: environment, non-fiction, biography-memoir, social-justice, activism, american-history

Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking

Tropes: champion, inspiring-journey, systemic-injustice

Setting: Alabama, Appalachia, Lowndes, Native Reservations

Period: 21st Century

208 pages · Hardcover · The New Press

Content warnings: racism

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