AFFLUVIA: The toxic off-gassing of affluent culture  by Johanna Drucker

SIGNED

Affluvia is a neologism for the “toxic off-gassing of affluent culture.” Approximately 60,000 words, the text is focused entirely on tracking the ecological costs of the author making coffee and feeding her cats every morning. The actions take less than ten minutes, but they are connected to complex networks of industrial production, extraction industries, human rights and labor issues, pollution of air and water, and destruction of human and animal habitat. The illustrated study breaks the coffee making and pet feeding into component parts—the lifecycle of the beans, coffee grinder, coffee maker, pet food, aluminum can, label, bowls and spoon—and profiles each in turn.

“This study exposes the connections between seemingly ordinary patterns of contemporary life and the global systems to which they are connected. Tracking the lifecycle of familiar objects creates a vivid, dramatic narrative–with shocking implications for understanding every aspect of our (generally unexamined) daily routines.” —Johanna Drucker

Bridge Books 
Paperback | 335 pages