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Plastic Legacies: Pollution, Persistence, and Politics
Summary
This review of the book 'Plastic Legacies: Pollution, Persistence, and Politics' examines how plastics communicate messages about class, gender, and identity, and how global policy responses to plastic pollution often neglect socio-cultural differences and the voices of affected communities.
In Chapter 11, "Plastics Talk/Talking Plastics: The Communicative Power of Plasticity," Deirdre McKay and her colleagues outline insights gleaned from two action research projects conducted in the Philippines and United Kingdom.They explore how plastics communicate important messages about class, gender, and identity formation of the subaltern.The authors outline how global attempts to respond to plastics pollution often neglect the socio-cultural differences between social groups, the important messages that plastics "speak" to us about including gender and Indigenous politics, and the cultural subversion of global waste.The authors emphasize that we need to learn to be attentive to the messages that plastics communicate if we are to respond to plastics pollution in empowering and meaningful ways.Chapter 12, the final chapter, from Trisia Farrelly, Ian Shaw, and John Holland, is entitled "Redressing the Faustian Bargains of Plastics Economies."The chapter outlines the need for a legally binding international treaty on plastics pollution based on the successes of the Montral Protocol on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ozone-depleting substances.The authors emphasize that such a global instrument must focus on prevention and the full life cycle of plastics from extraction to recovery of legacy plastics.The chapter foregrounds the hazardous, ambiguous, and unpredictable nature of plastics' physical, toxic, and biological entanglements and consequently argues that legislation should focus on preventing
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