Thicker than water : the quest for solutions to the plastic crisis

Much of what you’ve heard about plastic pollution may be wrong.

Instead of a great island of trash, the infamous GreatPacific Garbage Patch is made up of manmade debris spread over hundreds of miles of sea—more like a soup than afloating garbage dump.

Recycling is more complicated than we were taught: less than nine percent of the plastic we createis reused, and the majority ends up in the ocean. And plastic pollution isn’t confined to the open ocean: it’s in much of theair we breathe and the food we eat. In Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis, journalist Erica Cirino brings readers on a globe-hoppingjourney to meet the scientists and activists telling the real story of the plastic crisis.

From the deckof a plastic-hunting sailboat with a disabled engine, to the labs doing cutting-edge research on microplastics and thechemicals we ingest, Cirino paints a full picture of how plastic pollution is threatening wildlife and human health.

ThickerThan Water reveals that the plastic crisis is also a tale of environmental injustice, as poorer nations take in a larger share ofthe world’s trash, and manufacturing chemicals threaten predominantly Black and low-income communities. There is some hope on the horizon, with new laws banning single-use items and technological innovations to replaceplastic in our lives.

But Cirino shows that we can only fix the problem if we face its full scope and begin to repair ourthrowaway culture.

Thicker Than Water is an eloquent call to reexamine the systems churning out waves of plastic waste.