Illinois Authors

Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, N.J. : ©2005.

In Cash for Your Trash, Carl A. Zimring provides a history of scrap recycling, from colonial times to the present. Moving beyond the environmental developments that have shaped modern recycling enterprises, Zimring offers a unique cultural and economic portrait of the private businesses that made-large-scale recycling possible. Because it was particularly common for immigrants to own or operate a scrap business in the nineteenth century, the history of the industry reveals much about ethnic relationships and inequalities in American cities. Readers are introduced to the scrapworkers, brokers, and entrepreneurs who, like the materials they handled, were often marginalized. Integrating findings from archival, industrial, and demographic records, Cash for Your Trash demonstrates that over the years recycling has served purposes far beyond environmental protection. Its history and evolution reveals notions of Americanism, the immigrant experience, and the development of small business in this country.--Jacket.

Committee on Geographical Studies, University of Chicago, Chicago : 1994.

Committee on Geographical Studies, University of Chicago, Chicago : 1993.