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Plastic materialities in everyday geographies: Precautionary consumption, compromise and communicabilities in Singapore
Summary
Researchers interviewed Singaporean households about how they try to avoid toxic chemicals from plastic food containers—like switching to glass or "BPA-free" plastics—and found that health worries drive these choices far more than environmental concerns. But here's the catch: even with all these precautions, the study notes we can't fully escape plastic exposure since microplastics and plastic chemicals have already spread throughout our environment, meaning individual avoidance efforts have real limits.
While plastics are a ubiquitous part of everyday geographies, there is growing concern about the toxicity of food-contact plastics. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 54 members from 33 Singaporean households, we examine the geographies of plastic avoidance through the conceptual lenses of precautionary consumption and communicabilities. In this case, communicabilities refer to the conditions through which health and environmental risks associated with plastic consumption are circulated and rendered actionable. Meanwhile, a precautionary avoidance of (disposable) plasticware involves substitution with safer material alternatives, or reusable, food-safe, BPA-free plastic containers, among other strategies. We argue that precautionary plastic consumption contours everyday spatio-temporalities, from how food and beverages are stored and organised in domestic spaces to navigating (semi-)public spaces of consumption. In so doing, we foreground the situated compromises or trade-offs that are made vis-à-vis mitigating exposure to food-contact plastics, convenience and the minimisation of plastic waste. Crucially, we demonstrate differential communicabilities reflected in how concerns about health risks gain more traction than environmental ones. Finally, we explore the limits of precautionary consumption and compromise, not least because our ecologies are already awash with microplastics and plastic additives. Overall, this paper contributes to the emerging literature on the geographies of living with(out) plastics.