Beth Gardner

And then one day, I read an article, and it just was like a total gut punch because the article said that huge fossil fuel and petrochemical companies like ExxonMobil and their peers in the industry were ramping up to actually increase plastic production.

To then learn that, you know, this gigantic, wealthy, super politically powerful industry was actually pushing really hard in the other direction and pouring billions of dollars into new manufacturing facilities and that their plans were to make

even more plastic in the future, it just, you know, was such a shock.

Plastic, as a revenue stream, is helping to float the fossil fuel industry and keep it going as it starts to be undersold by clean energy.

So any additional source of money is a way to keep drilling.

After the war, or as the war was winding down even before it ended, you see the industry kind of gaining this awareness that, number one, they're going to be able to ramp up production as they shift towards a peacetime economy.

And number two, who are they going to sell all this plastic to?

And I think what was so shocking to me as I researched this book was the deliberateness and intention required

with which the industry pushed plastic into our lives.

So it really sort of intersects with the world of marketing and advertising.

Yep.

They're being invented and created with the idea that we will find a good and, by the way, profitable application for them afterwards.

Yeah.

One thing that was so interesting, and I was digging into sort of newspaper archives from like the 1970s about a fight in Yonkers, New York, just north of New York City, which was considering a bill that would...

require bottle companies to charge a deposit to consumers who bought a bottle.

And the industry showed up in force and started talking about bottling plants closing.

We're not going to be able to sell soda in Yonkers.

All the jobs will be lost.

500 jobs are under threat.

And the city council kind of panicked.