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How big brands fooled consumers with plastic
Saabira Chaudhuri's Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked On Plastic reads like a corporate thriller, except the villains are real and the consequences devastating. It is a gripping, meticulously researched exposé of the insidious role played by giant multinational corporations, such as McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and Unilever, in embedding single-use plastics into our daily lives.
A seasoned reporter, Chaudhuri traces the rise of plastic over the last 100 years while detailing how corporate greed, deceptive marketing, and unfulfilled recycling promises have fuelled a gargantuan environmental crisis for the world.
The questions the book raises are all around us in India as well; in the giant landfills that pockmark our cities. 'Why were taxpayers picking up the expense of sending bulky plastic packaging to landfills even though McDonald's was the one choosing to use it?" asks the author. Long-suffering Indians having to live with the toxicity of the giant landfills of Bhalswa in Delhi, Dhapa in Kolkata or Pirana in Ahmedabad, have been asking the same question without any answers.
Time was when plastics were hailed as a revolutionary, eco-friendly alternative to materials like paper and glass, which were resource-intensive to produce. It was believed that by replacing ivory and tortoiseshell in products such as snooker balls and combs, plastic would save the lives of animals like elephants and tortoises. The journey from those hopeful beginnings in the 1950s to today's disposability nightmare is a cautionary tale of short-term gains trumping long-term consequences.
The billions of polystyrene clamshell containers that McDonald's sent to landfills annually, falsely claiming they would 'aerate the soil", was all part of its grand plan to cut costs, push more of its fast foods while earning huge profits. Meanwhile, Procter & Gamble was using psychological marketing to convince parents that cloth diapers were inferior, locking generations into a cycle of waste with its disposable diapers.
Besides holding companies to account, Chaudhuri humanises the issue by drawing attention to the people affected by the phenomenon as well as those responsible for it. While the constant descriptions of functionally relevant but otherwise unimportant characters, such as Scott Stewart, a public relations manager for Procter & Gamble, are a bit of an irritant, they ensure that it isn't just a book about the macro picture.
Chaudhuri also dismantles persistent myths. Making park benches and picnic tables with recycled waste isn't viable since the price they fetch does not justify the collection and cleaning in big enough volumes. Her big reveal—if it can be called that—is the prevalent deceit around recycling. Coloured plastic bottles often end up as low-value grey plastic for pipes and not for new bottles, which leaves the demand for virgin plastic undiminished.
The analysis of single-use sachets in markets like India is particularly eye-opening. These tiny packets, used for everything from shampoo to mouth fresheners, are nearly unrecyclable. But having unlocked billion-dollar markets by targeting the bottom of the pyramid consumers, these tiny plastic sachets are now ubiquitous.
The book makes a persuasive case that recycling, far from being a solution, is often just savvy marketing dressed up as sustainability. Thus, products made from ocean plastic may be easy on the conscience but their price tags make them so prohibitive that they make no dent in the problem. Actor Rahul Khanna may cut a striking figure pulling waste from the ocean in an advertisement for 100 Pipers, but the only winner is Pernod Ricard India.
Equally scathing is the author's critique of 'greenwashing", the sly manner in which companies deflect their environmental responsibility through lobbying and funding dubious science to confuse consumers. It is a tactic likened by author Michael Moss in his book Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions to the well-rehearsed corporate playbook of 'denial, delay, and pretense."
Chaudhuri approaches her subject like an investigative journalist rather than an activist. That gives the book a balance often missing in discussions related to big MNCs like McDonalds, which, not surprisingly, features prominently. Rather than taking a flamethrower to plastic, it acknowledges the convenience and benefits of polymer, including savings on carbon emissions as compared to other materials like paper.
In a 2019 Wall Street Journal article, Chaudhuri highlighted how consumer goods makers struggle to replace plastic with alternatives like paper, which often fall short in functionality. That doesn't deflect from the fact that single-use plastic is technologically difficult and often uneconomical to recycle. Which is why plastic products are often left untreated in dumps.
Part indictment, part urgent manifesto, Consumed leaves readers not just disturbed by the scale of corporate complicity in the proliferation of plastic but also armed with the clarity to demand change. While charting how we got here, Chaudhuri also sketches what it will take to get out in a closing chapter on what we can all do to mitigate the disaster.
Sundeep Khanna is a business columnist and author of business books.
