Secondhand : Travels in the New Global Garage Sale (9781635570106)
"Minter's travels through the afterlife of stuff are revelatory, terryfing, but, ultimately, hopeful. 'Secondhand' helps us to see a world of possibility in the objects we discard." -Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE SIXTH EXTINCTION From the author of Junkyard Planet, a journey into the surprising afterlives of our former possessions. Downsizing. Decluttering. A parent's death. Sooner or later, all of us are faced with things we no longer need or want. But when we drop our old clothes and other items off at a local donation center, where do they go? Sometimes across the country-or even halfway across the world-to people and places who find value in what we leave behind. In Secondhand, journalist Adam Minter takes us on an unexpected adventure into the often-hidden, multibillion-dollar industry of reuse: thrift stores in the American Southwest to vintage shops in Tokyo, flea markets in Southeast Asia to used-goods enterprises in Ghana,...