Landfill

A groundbreaking new book from the author of The Running Sky and Four Fields, Landfill confronts our waste-making species through the extraordinary and fascinating life of gulls,and the people who watch them. Original, compelling and unflinching, it is the nature book for our times.

We think of gulls as pests. They steal our chips and make newspaper headlines, these animals, often derided as “bin chickens” are complex neighbours, making the most of our throw away species. In the anthropocene, they are a surprising success story. They’ve become intertwined with us, precisely because we are so good at making rubbish. Landfill is a book that avoids nostalgia and eulogy for nature and instead kicks beneath the littered surface to find stranger and more inspiring truths.

In Landfill, Tim Dee argues that rubbish tips can sustain life and offers an alternative view of how we should treat any animal that dares to live so closely with us.