garbage

So I'm reading a book called Garbage Land that's sort of a Fast Food Nation-esque review of where our garbage goes when we put it out by the curb.
Some highlights:

• I'm kind of relieved that the author tried composting her kitchen scraps and didn't have much success. She went fishing for some rich loam at the bottom of her pile and found a mouse instead. Yikes! Since we have a tree rat problem around here, I will have to carefully consider whatever composting I do.
• The section on plastics makes me want to never use anything plastic again. Sigh. The more I read about our society, the more I wonder how long we're going to last. Basically, plastic can be recycled, at best, once. And even that is toxic. Once you've recycled it then, it's only good for the landfill, where it leaches lovely carcinogens and poisons into our water. Sigh.
  
• They're trying to put a new landfill east of here, and there's all this NIMBY activism to keep it away. I kind of thought NIMBYs weren't so civic minded, but after reading about landfills, I wouldn't want one in my backyard, either.
• One note of hope: it seems we're not the only civilization that dealt with garbage badly. Highlights from Ye Olde trash collection: feral pigs roaming the streets for scraps! Stoops that served as havens from sludge! Manure-choked streets! Burying your trash in your house's floor, until eventually, you had to raise the roof!

Anyone have any other notes of hope? Anyone?