What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

This is a pretty specific request, but I wondered if anyone knew of novels that have people living off the salvage of a garbage planet or of people living in the "underworld" off of the salvage of the other people on the planet.

I know there's a movie on this basis, where they end up salvaging a soldier that's been thrown away. The name escapes me, but that's the idea I'm looking for.

There is a movie called Soldier, with Kurt Russell.

The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer has people excavating garbage dumps, mining for plastic and other "good" junk in future Africa.

Salvage by Alexandra Duncan has people excavating through earth garbage from space.

I also remember a short story by Clark or Asimov that had aliens in the distant future doing an archaeological dig on earth and trying to figure out the cultural beliefs in what turns out to be a Mickey Mouse short film.

Both of these are about Earth:

Feed

Ship Breaker

Thanks for the suggestions. They're the idea I was looking for. I'll pick them up to read.

Yes, Soldier is the movie I was thinking of. I'll have to re-watch it as well.

Battle Angel Alita, Volume 1: Rusty Angel (Battle Angel Alita is manga, but it's a gorgeous cyberpunk adventure about a combat android who, discarded from the floating city of Tiphares finds friends and love in the city of junk beneath it, the Scrap Yard.

Trash

H Beam Piper's certainly fits. Was originally titled Junkyard Planet.

There are others that won't come to me at the second...

Thanks for the suggestions. They look really good.

Gone

Hey Snowballina, can you tell us the author of Gone? I'm not sure which book to look at.
Thanks.

The Outcast

The Silver Child

The Past Is Red

Hell Divers series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith