Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret (The Studs and Ida Terkel Award)

In "Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret," Catherine Coleman Flowers, a MacArthur “genius” and recipient of the prestigious Studs and Ida Terkel Award, offers a compelling memoir that delves into her lifelong crusade for environmental justice. Growing up in the historically charged Lowndes County, Alabama, Flowers transformed from a country girl into a formidable activist, working alongside Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative. This Smithsonian Magazine Top Ten Best Science Book of 2020 exposes the stark reality of inadequate sanitation systems that plague America's rural poor, revealing how systemic injustice fosters Third World conditions in the wealthiest nation in the world. From the deep South to the urban Midwest and Native American reservations, Flowers's narrative connects her local struggle with a nationwide crisis exacerbated by climate change. Ideal for college students studying environmental justice, this book is a stirring call to action, urging a reevaluation of what constitutes basic human rights in modern America.