Reviewer: Ornmadee Baxter-Lovo
Age: 13

I enjoyed reading the book Trash Action. It had a lot of interesting facts about garbage. In the book you are introduced to the 3 Rs (Reuse, Reduce, and Refuse). Although some people may not want to read about garbage, the book managed to capture my interest with all of the true stories about how people have dealt with their garbage.

The stories in the book were from myths and old tales about the Earth, such as “Monster Bear”, a story about a village whose desire to have fish headdresses nearly wiped out the trout population, creating a problem for the lone bear that lived there.

The book clearly described the 3 Rs and even related them to the stories and history from other places. They pointed out how to refuse and to learn to say NO to things you don’t really need. They gave examples of reducing and using less plastic to hold things or to use barely any at all. The last “R” was reuse and had a short story about a woman who lived during the Depression and used and reused anything she could find. Her motto was “Waste not, want not”, meaning that nothing was thrown out if it could be reused.  

I enjoyed trying the “Making Choices” game, and reading about sizing our footprint. Sizing our footprint means how much impact we have on the Earth, measured against the 3 Rs.

The book needed no changes and I enjoyed it very much. The information in the book was detailed and was a great way to get introduced to the world of refusing, reusing, and reducing. If you are interested in the Earth and the effects we as humans have on it, this book is totally for you. I give it 9 out of 10. In one word this book was…INSPIRATIONAL! I recommend it to everyone, as it really creates a clear understanding of waste and its impact on the environment.

(Originally published in the November/December 2008 issue of YES Mag.)