Books in brief

摘要

Junk really is filthy lucre - the basis of a global scrap trade worth up to US$500 billion a year, writes Adam Minter. Scion of a professional recycling family, Minter anatomizes this complicated, half-hidden industry that he argues is, even at its dirtiest, greener than harvesting raw resources. He focuses on scrap m et al , a prized commodity now recycled in innovative ways' and the kingpins of the trade. Leonard Fritz, for instance, rose from extreme poverty to run the Michigan-based Huron Valley Steel Corporation, which annually processes almost half a million tonnes of shredded automobile.