Plastic

A Toxic Love Story

$34.90Ref: 3064Available now

  • We've produced as much plastic in the past decade as we did in the entire 20th century
  • Chronicles our history with plastic 'from enraptured embrace to deep disenchantment'
  • You'll learn more about plastic than you ever thought possible<
  • 153 x 234 mm, paperback
  • 336 pages

It turns out that plastic is not only an ongoing environmental peril, but a compulsively interesting story.

Bill McKibben

The New Internationalist magazine helps keep me in touch with the earth and all its people.

Jonathon Porritt - environmentalist

I've always been profoundly impressed by the quality of its research and its writing and how readily accessible it makes otherwise complex world affairs. Each of its ten annual editions is a short course in something profound.

John Harvey - Editor - Wednesday Weekly

New Internationalist products are always of high quality. I love receiving them.

A.Gormley, Redcliffe, Qld

Plastic built the modern world. Where would we be without bike helmets, toothbrushes, babies bottles and pacemakers? But a century into our love affair with plastic, we're starting to realise it's not such a healthy relationship. Plastics draw on dwindling fossil fuels, leach harmful chemicals, litter landscapes, and harm marine life. As journalist Susan Freinkel points out in this engaging and eye-opening book, we're nearing a crisis point. We've produced as much plastic in the past decade as we did in the entire twentieth century. We're drowning in the stuff, and we need to start making some hard choices.

Freinkel gives us the tools we need, with a blend of lively anecdotes and analysis. She combs through scientific studies and economic data, reporting from China, the United States and Australia to assess the real impact of plastic on our lives.

Plastic: A Toxic Love Story is told through eight familiar plastic objects: comb, chair, Frisbee, IV drip bag, disposable lighter, grocery bag, soft-drink bottle and credit card. Freinkel's conclusion: we cannot stay on our plastic-paved path. And we don't have to. Plastic points the way toward a new creative partnership with the material we love to hate but can't seem to live without.

ISBN / Barcode: 9781921758485

+1 this!