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Susan Freinkel

Plastic

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“This eloquent, elegant book thoughtfully plumbs the . . . consequences of our dependence on plastics” (The Boston Globe, A Best Nonfiction Book of 2011).
From pacemakers to disposable bags, plastic built the modern world. But a century into our love affair, we’re starting to realize it’s not such a healthy relationship. As journalist Susan Freinkel points out in this eye-opening book, we’re at a crisis point. Plastics draw on dwindling fossil fuels, leach harmful chemicals, litter landscapes, and destroy marine life. We’re drowning in the stuff, and we need to start making some hard choices.
Freinkel tells her story through eight familiar plastic objects: a comb, a chair, a Frisbee, an IV bag, a disposable lighter, a grocery bag, a soda bottle, and a credit card. With a blend of lively anecdotes and analysis, she sifts through scientific studies and economic data, reporting from China and across the United States to assess the real impact of plastic on our lives.
Her conclusion is severe, but not without hope. Plastic points the way toward a new creative partnership with the material we love, hate, and can’t seem to live without.
“When you write about something so ubiquitous as plastic, you must be prepared to write in several modes, and Freinkel rises to this task. . . . She manages to render the most dull chemical reaction into vigorous, breathless sentences.” —SF Gate
“Freinkel’s smart, well-written analysis of this love-hate relationship is likely to make plastic lovers take pause, plastic haters reluctantly realize its value, and all of us understand the importance of individual action, political will, and technological innovation in weaning us off our addiction to synthetics.” —Publishers Weekly
“A compulsively interesting story. Buy it (with cash).” —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
“What a great read—rigorous, smart, inspiring, and as seductive as plastic itself.” —Karim Rashid, designer
This book is currently unavailable
466 printed pages
Original publication
2011
Publication year
2011
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Quotes

  • Maria Gelmanhas quoted6 years ago
    A few years later, people told pollsters they considered cellophane the third most beautiful word in the English language, right behind mother and memory.
  • Soliloquios Literarioshas quoted5 years ago
    Sizewise, medicine is a small end market, consuming less than 10 percent of all polymers produced in the United States—peanuts compared to packaging (33 percent), consumer products (20 percent), and building and construction (17 percent).
  • Soliloquios Literarioshas quoted5 years ago
    Neonatology is a relatively new medical specialty. The first NICU was set up in 1965. That the field has blossomed in the age of polymers is probably not a coincidence, given the challenges of treating babies with hair-thin veins and tissue-paper skin. Still, until the 1980s, most of the intravenous fluids used in NICUs came in glass bottles. Short remembers the worry and inconvenience of those bottles falling and breaking. At first, said Short, the move to plastic seemed a tremendous advance. “We all thought plastics were inert, safe. We didn’t have to worry about it. Then as the research came out, it became more and more evident we needed to pay attention.”

    And here, Short hit on the central paradox of plastic in medicine: in the act of healing, it may also do harm.

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