Homo sapiens' astonishing capacity to consume is probably matched only by its parallel capacity to discard. Every week, even our tiny household puts out a couple of cubic metres of rubbish; multiply that by several million households and you have a disposal problem on a grand scale.

Heather Rogers takes a hard look at rubbish disposal in the USA, and particularly in New York, where the average citizen disposes of almost 800 kg of garbage annually. She begins by noting that, along with the pyramids and the Great Wall of China, one of the most visible landmarks from space is New York's Fresh Kills landfill, a huge malodorous scar that conceals 53 years of the great city's waste.

Among sound reasons for garbage disposal is maintenance of health, and some of the tales the author relates from the 19th century freeze the blood. Two of the book's small selection of photographs, taken in about 1895, show Fifth Street before and after street cleaning began, depicting the problem quite dramatically.

Cleaning the streets is one thing, however; disposing of their refuse is another matter. High temperature incinerator? Landfill? Dumping at sea? All these and more have been used in the U.S., and the author examines the results of each. She reveals cynical practices undertaken in the name of 'recycling' and even discovers the brutal hand of the Mafia in New York commercial garbage disposal as recently as the 1990s.

Her conclusion? For all the talk of corporations and governments, many encouraging advances in dealing with this seemingly intractable problem begin at home, as consumers think more critically about their wants compared with their needs, and how their purchase decisions and disposal choices affect the planet.