Author Elizabeth Royte To Discuss Garbage Land At Manhattan College

RIVERDALE, N.Y. – Elizabeth Royte, author of Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, will discuss her highly acclaimed book on Nov. 9 at 4:00 p.m. in Manhattan College’s Smith Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

A native of Park Slope, Brooklyn, Royte in Garbage Land explores where garbage goes after it leaves her curb. Along the way she learns how garbage collection is both ubiquitous and decidedly covert. Royte adroitly describes the ways in which garbage is increasingly a local and global issue.

Named to The New York Times’ list of 100 Notable Books of 2005 and to the Washington Post Book World’s list of Best Books of the Year, Garbage Land is told through the eyes of a keen reporter looking to provide insight on a part of everyday society that is both mundane and ignored.

Reviewing Garbage Land in September 2005, The New Yorker wrote, “(Royte’s) book takes the form of a quest for the surprising resting places of her yogurt cups, beer bottles, personal computer, and organic-fig-cookie packaging, and leads to an impassioned attack on over-consumption in America.”

Royte is a well-respected writer of science and the environment. Her articles have appeared in Harper’s, National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, Outside and other national publications. She was the recipient of an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship and is the author of The Tapir’s Morning Bath: Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest, which was also named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

For more information about this event, please contact Dr. Daniel Collins, associate professor of English at Manhattan College, at (718) 862-7498 or daniel.collins@manhattan.edu. 

Members of the media who would like to cover the event can call Scott Silversten at (718) 862-7232 or e-mail scott.silversten@manhattan.edu. Manhattan College is located at West 242nd Street near Broadway in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, one mile from the Westchester County line and accessible by MTA subway line 1.

Founded in 1853, Manhattan College is an independent, Catholic, coeducational institution of higher learning offering more than 40 major programs of undergraduate study in the areas of arts, business, education, engineering and science, along with graduate programs in education and engineering. For more information about Manhattan College, visit www.manhattan.edu