Plastic Inc.Plastic Inc.

"Plastic is everywhere in our daily lives. But the companies that make it-petrochemical companies which are often subsidiaries of Big Oil like ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical-seem to be hiding in plain sight. For all the vivid coverage of where plastic ends up, there is remarkably little discussion of where it comes from. Plastic, it turns out, is a financial lifeline for oil companies that are concerned about diminishing demand for oil and gas in the future, and these companies are doing everything they can to double and eventually triple plastic production by 2050. Award-winning journalist Beth Gardiner gives readers an up-close look at the plastic industry's relentless growth, its extraordinary profits, its toxic pollution and its hidden role in exacerbating climate change. Every chapter in Plastic Inc brings new revelations, including: how Big Oil invented the idea of recycling, even though they always knew that recycling plastic at scale would never work (and by doing so, they created the playbook that big tobacco and big pharma would later follow); how microplastics are becoming a health crisis; how oil companies have linked with political forces to fight against bans on single use plastic like plastic bags, even creating laws that ban bans; the major characters and personalities behind what amounts to a hidden corporate and political scandal perpetuated over decades. The stories in Plastic Inc will reframe for readers a problem many of us think we understand, but which has deeper roots and a more complicated future than we can have possibly imagined"--