Well, hello there, my friends, and welcome back. My name is Stephanie Safarian, and you're listening to

episode 592 of Sustainable Minimalists. This is a listener-supported show about intentional and

eco-friendly minimalist living. And on today's show, we're talking about plastic.

More specifically, we're talking about why we keep making more plastic, despite the fact that it's littering our communities, choking our waterways, polluting our air, and harming our health.

I want to take a step back, and I want you to call to mind the last piece of plastic you had. You either threw it in the trash can or the recycling bin. So maybe it was a

takeout container, maybe it was a plastic bottle, maybe it was even packaging from an online order.

If you're like most people, you probably felt a little twinge of guilt when you threw it out.

If you put it in the recycling bin, maybe that helped

to assuage a bit of that guilt. But what if I told you that the guilt you felt was meticulously

designed, manufactured, and sold to you by some of the most powerful corporations on Earth?

How would you feel about that? The fossil fuels and plastic

industries turned Americans on to a disposable lifestyle on purpose, and then they turned around

and made us feel guilty for being so wasteful. They touted recycling as the solution, and recycling certainly distracted us for a few

decades, and now they're touting chemical recycling as the latest solution, and I'm doing

solution in air quotes, as the latest solution to plastic and its proliferation.

Meanwhile, these industries continue to make more and more plastic.

Why? Why are they doing it? Well, that's easy. It's because as the world shifts to electric cars and renewable energy, big oil is staring down a drop in fuel demand. And plastic then is their financial lifeline. ExxonMobil,

Saudi Aramco, and other petrochemical companies have big plans to double or even triple plastic production in the coming years. Triple. Think about that. Think about how much plastic

is at the grocery store right now. They're planning to triple it. So today we're flipping the script. For decades, we've talked about plastic in terms of its end life, like what it's doing, where it ends up, our personal responsibility to use less plastic. My guest today argues that we need to stop talking about plastics

and life and start talking about who's making all this plastic and why. So my guest is

Beth Gardner. Beth is an environmental journalist. She's also the author of the brand new,

really great book titled Plastic Inc. The Secret History and Shocking Future of Big Oil's Biggest Bet. Oh my gosh, Beth, I am so thrilled to talk to you today. How are you?

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