Here Comes the Garbage Barge!

This non-fiction tale follows Captain Duffy St. Pierre and his barge filled with 3,168 tons of garbage. Departing from Islip, a city on New York's Long Island, this barge traveled for 162 days to many cities along the coast of the United States and South America in order to find somewhere to put the garbage. After gaining significant national attention, the Garbage Barge was not allowed to dock at any port. Almost six months later and over six thousand miles, the trash was incinerated and and justice was served! 

I think that this book would be a wonderful way to introduce recycling in a classroom and highlight the different things that we as a society did before we knew what to do with our garbage. What is extremely interesting about the pictures in the book is that they were actually created with real garbage! I found this extremely interesting and I truly believe that students would love to look at the pictures or use the recyclables that we collect in our classroom to create art with trash. 

Overall, I think that this is a really interesting read! Students would get a kick out of the pictures in the book and it could be tied to several subjects across curriculum, including history, science, and art! 

Here Comes the Garbage Barge!
By: Jonah Winter
Pictures by: Red Nose Studio
Published in 2010