Plastic

A Toxic Love Story

By: Susan Freinkel

Narrated by: Pam Ward

Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Plastic built the modern world. Where would we be without bike helmets, baggies, toothbrushes, and pacemakers? But a century into our love affair with plastic, we're starting to realize it's not such a healthy relationship. Plastics draw dwindling fossil fuels, leach harmful chemicals, litter landscapes, and destroy marine life. As journalist Susan Freinkel points out in this engaging and eye-opening book, we're nearing a crisis point. We're drowning in the stuff, and we need to start making some hard choices. Freinkel gives us the tools we need with a blend of lively anecdotes and analysis. She combs through scientific studies and economic data, reporting from China and across the United States to assess the real impact of plastic on our lives. She tells her story through eight familiar plastic objects: comb, chair, Frisbee, IV bag, disposable lighter, grocery bag, soda bottle, and credit card. Her conclusion: we cannot stay on our plastic-paved path. Plastic points the way toward a new creative partnership with the material we love to hate but can't seem to live without.

©2011 Susan Freinkel (P)2011 Dreamscape Media, LLC

One Subject of Plastic

For some reason, I found this book to be extremely interesting. It's all about plastic. Instead on a riot how plastic is bad for us, Susan Freinkel strictly stick to one subject of plastic and she express very little personal rhetoric on the subject. If you want to know how plastic came about and the future of the material, then you have to listen to this title. As you start reading, it should take you back to school, where you are taking chemistry again.

Interesting and relevant

Thought provoking and helping me understand how toxic plastic is! The touching plastic test was interesting and I challenged myself too.

nice

Nice gateway book for those wondering what the heck is all this plastic fuzz about.

Immensely entertaining and informative

Never before have I so thoroughly enjoyed reading about materials science, manufacturing, and ecological issues!

This book is packed with information about the development and impact of plastics within the past few decades, drawing from research articles, interviews, and site visits. The facts and views presented are sufficiently technical to ensure one's trust in the objectivity of the topics, as well as maintain the interest of an engineer or enthusiastic hobbyist; still, in no way did I find the writing to be difficult for any layperson to understand. As a mechanical engineer myself, I found I still learned a great deal about different kinds of plastics and their post-consumer roles.

But perhaps more importantly, I found the author's writing to be delightful. Susan playfully weaves a quirky narrative about her journey to dissect the plastics world, enlivening the technical topics. The narrator also speaks so comfortably and easily that I would have thought that she wrote the text herself, truly capturing the author's fun spirit.

If you are an engineer, designer, or some other professional in the consumer goods industry, read this. If you are interested in environmental debates, read this. If you are simply interested to learn how, in only a few decades, we came to live in a plastics-filled world, read this.

Very thorough content, a huge primer

Extremely thorough content. I was really surprised how non judgmental and unbiased it was. I have been on a hippy/green bender of reading and lifestyle choices. I expected this book to point the finger of guilt at the big, bad plastic institution but instead everything was well written with facts and very objective. Narrator wasn't bad, just speed it up to 1.20 or you will get bored at the slow page. I highly recommend to everyone to give a listen.

great book about plastics!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Only certain friends that would be concerned with plastic in their life.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

The medical aspect of plasic.
And the plastic bag.
The book is great at explaining why plastic came about and how each item the writter hones in on made way for more and more plasic to invade our lives with out us barely noticeing.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, the chapter about the chair was a little over the top boring. But I appreciate how thourgh she was from the begining of the chair to how we came to a plasic chair. Almost as if you need to master the concept of the chair before understanding the simplicity of a chair being one (plastic) piece.

Thoroughly engaging and enlightening

Plastics and their chemistry, their environmental impacts are not new to me. Even then, this book is a treasure. Afterall the world is plastics is too big for one to know everything about it.
Well researched, engrossingly narrated and most importantly highlights the intricate , intractable and unfortunately interminable need for plastics. Susan has chosen a perfect motif to describe the whole history. Its a messed up love hate relationship.
Pam Ward’s narration is pitch perfect.

Excellent book

I've been working hard to reduce my use of plastics and this book was very helpful in providing me the history and background I needed to accomplish that.

Objective and wide

Super interesting and well composed. It opened my eyes and mind to new thoughts and possibilities, which is all I ask from a good nonfiction book.

A Biography of Plastic

A Challenge: Write down every object that you use in one day that is all or part plastic. Also write down a list of the objects that you use that day that contain no plastics. Maybe even share your list with all of us.

Plastic dominates our life to such a degree that we hardly notice it anymore. Our post-industrial information economy runs on plastics made from petroleum products. And what is amazing is that our plastic economy is a fairly recent development. You are related to people who grew up in a non-plastic economy.
Plastic: A Toxic Love Story covers the history, science, economics, and politics of plastic.

My brain works best if I can try to understand the world through a narrow frame, the big picture through a single object. Freinkel's biography of plastic makes for a good story, and she tells it with the right balance of personal antidote, storytelling, and reporting.