WHAT HAPPENS TO GARBAGE?

The author's dedication is to ""my mother- and father-in-law,"" the latter being a man who had his own problems with New York City's sanitation department. But don't laugh; when you scan the photos of panoramic seas of garbage dumped in a landfill operation on Fresh Kills, Staten Island, all those wastefully discarded paper towels and plastic bags could come back to haunt you. Like Beame's Ladder Company 108 (1973) this is slight but distinguished by refreshing, personal interviews. We particularly liked Mr. John Cassiliano, who presides proudly--with his garden, pet goats and a beehive--over the landscaping of a garbage mountain on Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn.