HEARD about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? It’s the largest accumulation of plastic in the world and is now six times the size of the UK.

Finsbury Park author Beth Gardiner reveals that the patch, first identified in 1997, and discovered between Hawaii and mainland America, is growing all the time, and now measures 1.6 million square kilometres. She explores it in her fascinating and disturbing new book, Plastic Inc.: Big Oil, Big Money and the Plan to Trash our Future.

Plastic is everywhere in our daily lives. But there is remarkably little discussion of where it comes from and what it is doing to the world and our health.

In the book, award-winning environmental journalist Beth exposes the truth of the vast, rapacious industry flooding our world with plastic.

In the past 20 years, she writes, plastic production has doubled, and it will double again, perhaps triple, in the near future. The material takes an invisible toll on our health. The chemicals that leach out have been linked to heart disease, cancer, fertility problems and even neurodevelopment issues. Tiny microplastic particles now invade the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink, and have been detected in human brains, hearts, bone marrow, placentas, and breast milk.

Beth suggests that many oil and petrochemical giants are “hiding in plain sight”.

Beth Gardiner

She asserts: “Given how prolific plastic is in every part of our life, how have they managed to stay out of the public story for so long?

“Part of the reason, I think, is that the companies at the centre of plastic production – the oil and petrochemical firms – aren’t consumer-facing. You’re not buying a plastic bottle from INEOS or Exxon Mobil. You’re buying it from a supermarket. So when the public does focus on corporate responsibility for plastic, it tends to land on retailers and supermarkets, or on consumer brands, like the companies selling shampoo, snacks, or bottled drinks.”

Beth believes that everyone can and should reduce the amount of plastic they use.

When China closed its doors to foreign plastic waste in 2018, it could have been a moment of reckoning – a firm nudge to wealthy nations to look clearly at the mess we were creating and find a different path.

Instead, the waste was sent to new places such as Daru, Indonesia’s second largest city. Residents watched the resulting wave of plastic crash onto fields, villages, and waterways.

Beth, who once worked in Indonesia teaching English, writes: “As China started restricting waste imports the volume of plastic landing in the sprawling archipelago nation spiked. Its neighbours Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines experienced a similar deluge.”

She told Review that by bringing your own cloth bags to buy produce, and re-using them, you can help cut out plastic, and urged: “Choose unpackaged fruits and vegetables rather than those wrapped in plastic. Carry a durable stainless steel or glass water bottle and a travel mug for coffee.

“As for cutlery and straws, pack a small set of wooden or bamboo utensils and a metal straw for takeaway food.”

Beth added: “I always try and remember to bring my own reusable bag to a store. But while some of us try hard, the bigger picture is that there are huge, incredibly wealthy and powerful companies that make all the plastic and just continue to make even more.

“I think we need to stop looking at ourselves so much and start looking at them. We as individuals are not responsible for the world’s mess of plastic. It is the industry that is pumping it all out.

“The industry will be making billions before long.”

Beth’s previous book, about air pollution, titled Choked: The Age of Air Pollution, and the Fight for A Cleaner Future, was named as one of the best of 2019 by The Guardian and was a finalist for the National Association of Science Writers’ Science in Society book award.

The book helped inspire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to launch a campaign to reduce air pollution and improve health across the capital.

• Plastic Inc. Big Oil, Big Money and the plan to Trash Our Future. By Beth Gardiner, Monoray, £22