There is virtually nowhere on earth that remains untouched by plastics and the situation presents a serious threat to our natural world. Despite the magnitude of the problem, the interventions most often put in place are consumer-led and market-based and only nominally capable of addressing the issue. As the problem worsens and neoliberal ideologies limit the world’s responses to this crisis, there is a growing need for legislative frameworks that attend to the complex social and ecological issues associated with plastics.

The contributors to this volume bring expertise from across academic disciplines to illustrate how plastics are produced, consumed, and discarded and to find holistic and integrated approaches that demonstrate an understanding of the wide-ranging problem. From the plasticization of earth’s oceans to the endocrine disrupting chemicals that have the potential to seriously harm life as we know it, these essays beg the question that we all must answer: what is our plastic legacy?

With contributions by: Imogen E. Napper, Sabine Pahl, Richard C. Thompson, Sasha Adkins, Stephanie B. Borrelle, Jennifer Provencher, Tina Ngata, Sven Bergmann, Christina Gerhardt, Elyse Stanes, Tridibesh Dey, Mike Michael, Laura McLauchlan, Johanne Tarpgaard, Deirdre McKay, Padmapani Perez, Lei Xiaoyu, and John Holland.

Trisia Farrelly is a senior lecturer in social anthropology and a co-director of the Political Ecology Research Centre at Massey University, Aotearoa New Zealand. She is co-founder of the New Zealand Product Stewardship Council and the Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance. She has been a member of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Expert Group (Marine Litter and Microplastics) since 2017; and she was nominated to its associated Scientific Advisory Committee in 2019.

Trisia Farrelly's profile page

Sy Taffel is a senior lecturer in media studies and co-director of the Political Ecology Research Centre at Massey University, Aotearoa New Zealand. He has published work on political ecologies of digital media, media and materiality, hacktivism, digital automation, and pervasive/locative media. He is the author of Digital Media Ecologies (Bloomsbury 2019).

Sy Taffel's profile page

Ian Thomas Shaw was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. For the last 33 years, he has worked as a diplomat and as an international development worker, living in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. He currently lives in Aylmer, Quebec. He is the founder of Deux Voiliers Publishing, the Prose in the Park Literary Festival and the Ottawa Review of Books. Quill of the Dove is his second novel.

Ian Shaw's profile page