Over the decades, scientific studies have highlighted the environmental and human toll of making, using, and discarding disposable plastics, and yet activist campaigns, international treaty negotiations, and government regulations have done very little to curb its use. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development expects plastic production and waste to triple by 2060.
In Saabira Chaudhuri’s recently published Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic, the London-based journalist explains how consumer goods companies have for decades dodged regulation in their efforts to maintain the status quo. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Chaudhuri talks about the plastics industry playbook, which she says stokes fears that a curb on disposables will raise consumer prices and presents false solutions that shift responsibility for plastic litter from producers onto municipalities. She explores the history of manufacturing demand for disposables and offers hope that a critical mass of concerned individuals can turn the plastics tide.“I do think people are starting to worry about the health impacts from plastics, which could motivate a shift back towards more durable materials,” she says. “Nobody likes the idea of microplastics in our brains and in our lungs. People want to get [this] under control.”
Yale Environment 360: Last month, negotiations on an international agreement to reduce plastic pollution failed, once again, after oil-producing nations refused to cut their plastics production. Will the oil states ever come around?
Saabira Chaudhuri: In 2024, the IEA said 70 percent of the growth from oil had actually come from plastics. And if you look at the future, [those nations] seem to be betting everything on the fact that plastics will continue to grow. So I think any agreement that tried to get the whole world on board was always doomed to fail. But the consensus seems to be that a smaller group of countries can still come together and commit to making big changes, phasing out dangerous chemicals, mandating minimum recycled content, designing for recycling and reuse, things that will naturally cut back on demand for virgin plastic.
e360: Do individuals have a role to play?
Chaudhuri: We have an immense amount of power to influence what consumer goods companies do by either buying or not buying their products, by speaking to them, whether it’s their customer service people or calling them out on social media. If you start to change the culture of what’s acceptable, and it starts to show up in the profit lines of these companies, they will be motivated to make changes that [will] trickle back to this whole very murky world of chemical companies, oil companies, and resin producers.
e360: What is the industry’s playbook? How do companies manage to keep selling plastic, despite all that we know about its threats to our health?
Chaudhuri: The first tactic is to say [that abandoning plastic] will drive up prices for consumers. It’s going to make everything more expensive. You also see them funding lifecycle analyses and studies that generally seem to be drawing conclusions, cherry-picking assumptions, that confirm that disposability is the best option, that plastic is the best option. And if you did anything differently, it would be really terrible for both consumers and the environment. More of this article (Yale Environment 360) - link - Saabira Chaudhuri - link - more like this (plastics) - link - more like this (IEA) - link
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