Consumed
22 May 2025Imprint: Blink Publishing
Synopsis
'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.
'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.
Details
22 May 2025368 pages
9781785120329Imprint: Blink Publishing
Reviews
'This book will change the way you see the world and could change the world itself. It reads like a thriller, full of stories and facts that would be beyond belief if it wasn't for the exceptional and rigorous journalism throughout. This is a very rare and important book, and it's also really, really funny. You will not be able to put it down'Chris van Tulleken, bestselling author of Ultra-Processed People
'As alarming as it is entertaining, this brilliant book exposes a pernicious industry that has us all in its grip. Saabira Chaudhuri does for plastics what Chris van Tulleken has done for ultra-processed foods - first make us angry, then make us want to do something'Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, host of War on Plastic with Anita and Hugh
'In Consumed, Saabira Chaudhuri lifts the lid on petrochemical and consumer goods companies' plastic obsession ??- exposing how their profits come at the planet's expense. With sharp research and a gripping story, she lays out the real cost of our throwaway culture and challenges us to kick the plastic habit'Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield, co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s
'This eye-popping, engaging and rigorous book lifts the lid on the huge and rapidly rising cost of plastic in our lives. It exposes the pivotal role that deception has played over the decades through well-funded lobbying of government and deliberate misinforming of consumers. The human stories of people trying to do the right thing, or of convincing themselves their industry is not as bad as it seems, are as compassionate as they are critical. There are others, of course, who put short-term profit blatantly above human and planetary health - Consumed gives us the good, the bad and the ugly of our plastic history. With global plastic consumption and waste forecast to triple by 2060, this timely book calls for a much-needed reset on plastic and lays bare the myths of a recycling future. This book is for anyone who cares about the health of people or planet, and wants to know what to do'Mike Berners-Lee, author of A Climate of Truth and There is No Planet B