Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic

by Saabira Chaudhuri

Overview

Shortlisted for the SABEW 2025 Best in Business Book Awards

Longlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award.

'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
 
‘Chaudhuri does a mighty job of showing how plastic came to take over our lives, and why we have repeatedly failed to curb it’  FINANCIAL TIMES

'A must read for anyone who buys anything plastic' MICHAEL MOSS, PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF SALT, SUGAR, FAT
 
‘Sharp research and a gripping story’ BEN COHEN AND JERRY GREENFIELD, CO-FOUNDERS OF BEN & JERRY’S
 
'Fantastic reporting! This book will entertain you even as it raises your blood pressure' BILL MCKIBBEN, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE END OF THE WORLD
 
'Eye-popping, engaging and rigorous' MIKE BERNERS-LEE, AUTHOR OF A CLIMATE OF TRUTH 
 
‘An important and engaging read' ADAM ALTER, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF IRRESISTIBLE

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 sachets and ultra-processed foods. We were never clamoring for any of this. 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785120329
Publisher:	Bonnier Books UK
Publication date:	10/07/2025
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Saabira Chaudhuri has covered consumer goods companies for the Wall Street Journal for the past decade. She previously reported on the banking industry for the Journal from New York. She was the Journal's Asia fellow to New York University, earning an MA in business and economic reporting. She also has a BA in sociology from Mount Holyoke College. Saabira grew up in Bangalore. She lives in London with her husband, two children and dog.

Editorial 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
 
‘Saabira Chaudhuri does a mighty job of showing how plastic came to take over our lives, and why we have repeatedly failed to curb it … Chaudhuri makes a powerful case for smarter rules on recycling and other measures that push plastic-using companies to bear more of its growing environmental and social costs.’ – Financial Times 
 
'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
 
'If you're a CEO in an industrial complex like Big Plastic, you'd better hope that Saabira Chaudhuri doesn't turn her interest your way. As she does in Consumed, she'll pry loose your playbook and lay bare the strategy that's common to so many companies that sell us goods with huge hidden costs: the denial, the delay, the pretence of giving in, with some secretly funded science to confuse us all (her chapter on throw-away diapers is a gem). A must read for anyone who buys anything plastic' -- Michael Moss, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Salt, Sugar, Fat
 
'Fantastic reporting! This book will entertain you even as it raises your blood pressure - and hopefully it will move you to join the movement to rein in this kind of reckless nonsense!' -- Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

'Consumed examines the rise and rise of plastic consumption - our addiction to the material as users, and the role big business plays as pusher. Chaudhuri's book is convincing and expertly written, driven by impressively deep research and a sharp understanding of how plastic consumption illuminates many of the bigger issues that underpin consumer behaviour, from widespread greed to a convenience-above-all mentality that often trumps safety and environmental awareness. An important and engaging read' -- Adam Alter, bestselling author of Irresistible and Anatomy of a Breakthrough
 
'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
 
'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
 
'Consumed tells the terrifying tale of how we wrapped our world in plastic. Knowing plastic resides inside us and most other living creatures is deeply disturbing but I am grateful to learn how we got here. Consumed explains how slick advertising played a crucial role in the plastics revolution, convincing us to ditch refillable glass bottles, discard washable linen diapers and insist on food wrapped in film. We also fell for the deceitfully reassuring lie of recycling - a tale Consumed tells in dramatic detail. The only real antidote to this plastic plague is a truthful tale told well enough to supercharge our desire to do something about it. Consumed achieves this feat admirably.' -- Simon Clark, author of The Key Man
 
'This deeply researched, eminently readable book exposes how consumer products giants deflected one environmental challenge after another to catastrophic effect. Saabira Chaudhuri lays out the hidden history of how the Cokes and P&Gs of the world unleashed lobbyists, lawyers and spinmeisters to evade their responsibilities to the planet with some masterful greenwashing. Consumed is the drama-filled, yet highly factual, story of the road to our microplastics crisis' -- John Helyar, co-author of Barbarians at the Gate
 
'Consumed is an engaging book... a story about plastic's pioneers and detractors, propelled to unexpected successes and stymied by unforeseen problems - and a corporate class who steeped the world in chemicals causing untold damage to us all' – Daily Telegraph
 
'Our entire lives are pressed out of plastic these days - but how did that happen? Saabira Chaudhuri's Consumed tells the astonishing, bemusing and sometimes enraging story of how we let plastic take over the world. Her reporting transports us back to the nearly plastic-free 1950s, then shows us how we got from then to now. Consumed will change how you look at your everyday life, from your garbage bags to your kitchen utensils' -- Charles Fishman bestselling author of The Wal-Mart Effect and The Big Thirst
 
'Consumed is a fascinating and timely book that sheds light on the dirty truth about our use of plastics. Chaudhuri is a deft storyteller, a thorough researcher and a tenacious reporter. Here, she proves to be a compelling and convincing guide to a critical corner of the global environment. Her book should be read by policymakers, corporate titans and anyone with an interest in the future health of our planet' -- Duncan Mavin, author of Pyramid of Lies and Meltdown
 
'An honest and eye-opening account of how plastic has shaped our world, for better and worse. Essential reading for anyone who cares about sustainability and the future of our planet' -- James Piper, host of Talking Rubbish
 
'This book will be essential reading for those interested in how we got into the plastic mess we are now in, as activists seek to hold firms accountable for pollution they generated for decades. From McDonald's hamburger packages to disposable diapers to Coca-Cola bottles, shampoo containers, straws and more, this is a comprehensive look at a profligate plastic past that is now due for a reckoning' -- Bart Elmore, author of Citizen Coke
 
'Compelling... (Consumed) is a must-read for anyone looking to understand the true cost of plastic' -- The Grocer
 
‘It’s fantastic! – Alexis Conran, Times Radio

From the Publisher