The Problem with Plastic

“Plastic pollution has reached crisis proportions, and false solutions abound. But as The Problem with Plastic shows, there are real solutions out there. And, fortunately, there are people like Judith Enck working to enact them.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction

A powerful look at plastic’s impact on human health and the environment, and how we can fight back by putting people and the planet over plastics

Plastic is everywhere—wrapped around our food, stitched into our clothes, even coursing through our veins. Once a marvel of modern science, plastic has become so inextricably woven into our lives that imagining a world without it can seem impossible. Over the last seventy-five years, plastic has cradled our planet in a synthetic embrace.

The Problem with Plastic critically examines the paradox of this material, first celebrated for its innovations and now recognized for its devastating environmental and public health impacts. With clarity and urgency, the book reveals how plastic pollution contributes to poisoned oceans, polluted air, a warming planet, and overwhelming waste, disproportionately impacting marginalized communities who bear the brunt of petrochemical pollution.

Revealing the alarming extent of microplastics infiltrating both the natural world and the human body, this compelling narrative challenges the illusion that recycling alone will save us. It unpacks the mechanisms of environmental racism and the deceptive greenwashing strategies used by the plastics industry to maintain the status quo.

More than a critique, The Problem with Plastic emphasizes the urgent need for action against plastic’s toxic legacy. It highlights powerful stories of frontline resistance in places like Louisiana, Texas, and Appalachia, and equips readers with practical tools—including a “Household Waste Audit” to track and reduce plastic consumption, as well as model policy guides for driving legislative change.

Urgent, eye-opening, and ultimately empowering, The Problem with Plastic reminds us: plastic is a problem—but together, we can be the solution.

Judith Enck is the founder and president of Beyond Plastics, whose goal is eliminating plastic pollution everywhere. In 2009, she was appointed by President Obama to serve as regional administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and served as deputy secretary for the environment in the New York Governor’s Office. She is currently a professor at Bennington College, where she teaches classes on plastic pollution. She lives in upstate New York.

Adam Mahoney is a climate and environmental reporter who has reported from more than a dozen U.S. states and Palestine, Mexico, Uganda, and Vietnam for newspapers and magazines including The New York Times and The Guardian. The co-author (with Judith Enck and Beyond Plastics) of The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late (The New Press), he lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The co-author (with Judith Enck and Adam Mahoney) of The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late (The New Press), Beyond Plastics is a nationwide project based at Bennington College that uses education, advocacy, and grassroots organizing to reduce the production and use of plastic. Visit www.beyondplastics.org