As we continue to produce more goods while claiming to limit refuse, we must learn to find wealth in our discards and castaways.

Secondhand shops, sidewalk salvagers, yard and garage sales… Objects can be given new life with transformation through practices long discredited by our consumer society, which include collecting and combing through junk. Reuse puts discarded objects back into circulation in hopes of finding them new users, even new uses. Anthropologists, geographers, and sociologists examine how reuse happens in Germany, Egypt, the United States, France, Italy, Morocco, and Sweden, giving us insight into the ambiguities of a practice that strikes not only to revitalize objects but also the people who use them.