' 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 ' Chaudhuri does a mighty
job of showing how plastic came to take over our lives and why we have repeatedly failed to
curb it' FINANCIAL TIMES ' 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. ' An important and engaging read' ADAM ALTER
BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF IRRESISTIBLE AND ANATOMY OF A BREAKTHROUGH
