' This book will change the way you see the world and could change the world itself'
CHRIS VAN TULLEKEN BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ULTRA-PROCESSED PEOPLE ' A must read for anyone
who buys anything plastic' MICHAEL MOSS PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF SALT SUGAR FAT
' Eye-popping engaging and rigorous' MIKE BERNERS-LEE AUTHOR OF A CLIMATE OF TRUTH
' As alarming as it is entertaining ... brilliant' HUGH FEARNLEY-WHITTINGSTALL HOST OF
WAR ON PLASTIC WITH ANITA AND HUGH Over the past seventy years McDonald' s Coca-Cola
Procter & Gamble Unilever and other consumer goods makers have harnessed single-use plastics
to turbocharge their profits. They' ve poured billions of dollars into convincing us we need
disposable diapers cups bags bottles shampoo in sachets and plastic-packaged
ultra-processed foods. We were never clamouring for any of these items but this shift towards
disposability has fundamentally transformed our daily habits. Think of toddlers kept in
disposable diapers for far longer than their parents wore cloth our obsession with bottled
water and our insatiable appetite for convenient snacks and coffee. While at first we shaped
plastics somewhere along the way plastics took over and began shaping us. Like any addiction
our plastic habit has consequences. It is damaging our climate and biodiversity and we are only
just starting to understand its effect on our own health. How did plastic take over our lives?
And why have we been unable to rein it in? In investigating how we got here Consumed arms us
to make better decisions about where we go next. It is only by understanding this history that
we will stop accepting the same failed solutions and demand better from the brands that got us
hooked on plastic in the first place.
