Plastic Unlimited: How corporations are fuelling the ecological crisis and what we can do about it?
In honor of Net Zero awareness week in 2022, the Energy and Sustainable Cities GRP welcomes you to Alice Mah's launch of her new book, Plastic Unlimited: How corporations are fueling the ecological crisis and what we can do about it (Mah, 2022).
Wednesday 6th July, 2022: 10:30 - 1:30pm, WBS 2.005, Warwick University (hybrid option available)
Despite the global movement to tackle plastic pollution, demand for plastics continues to rise. As the world transitions away from fossil fuels, plastics are set to be the biggest driver of oil demand. Single-use plastics – deemed essential in the fight against Covid-19 – have been given a new lease of life. In a world beset with crisis fatigue, what can we do to curb the escalating plastics crisis?
In this incisive book, sociologist Alice Mah reveals how petrochemical and plastics corporations have fought relentlessly to protect and expand plastic markets in the face of existential threats to business. From denying the toxic health effects of plastics to co-opting circular economy solutions to plastic waste and exploiting the opportunities offered up by the global pandemic, industry has deflected attention from the key problem: plastics production.
The consequences of unfettered plastics growth are pernicious and highly unequal. We all have a part to play in reducing plastic consumption but we must tackle the problem at its root – the capitalist imperative for limitless growth.
**Copies of the book will be available for purchase on the day**
Meet the Author and Discussants
About the Author: Alice Mah, University of Warwick
Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick and Co-Director of the Warwick Environmental Systems Interdisciplinary Centre,Link opens in a new window she is the author of Industrial Ruination, Community, and Place, winner of the 2013 BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize, Port Cities and Global Legacies, and (with Thom Davies) Toxic Truths: Environmental Justice and Citizen Science in a Post-Truth Age.
Discussant: Nickie Charles, University of Warwick
Professor of Sociology and Co-director of the Centre for Women and Gender, her research focuses on gender relations at work and at home and how women - through involvement in feminist social movements - can bring about social change.
Discussant: Nirmal Puwar, Goldsmiths University
Reader at the department of Sociology at Goldsmiths University and Co-Director of Methods Lab. She is a member of the Feminist Review editorial collective since 2000.[2] Puwar has co-edited 17 Collections, including: Post-colonial Bourdieu; Orientalism and Fashion; Intimacy in Research; Live Methods and, South Asian Women in the Diaspora.
Puwar has written about and researches postcolonialism; institutions, race and gender & critical methodologies and has written two books; Space Invaders: race, gender and bodies out of place (2004), in which she argues that that diversity is about perceptions of whiteness rather than how whiteness operates and Fashion and Orientalism (2003).
Discussant: Jess Savage, University of Warwick
Assistant Professor and Deputy head of the School for Cross-faculty Studies (Global Sustainable Development), her research interests surround human-ecosystem interactions, and the monitoring of marine resources, impact assessments. Ultimately, identifying the best means of integrating local resource-dependent communities into the habitat conservation, monitoring, and management.
The event will be chaired by Dr Jonathan Clarke, University of Warwick
Jonathan joined the Global Sustainable Development (GSD) programme in October 2017. Prior to this time, he worked as a Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) at the University of Warwick, where he contributed to a number of predominantly EU-funded international research projects. He has an interdisciplinary outlook, with particular interests in cities, design, governance, water and future societies.
| Time | Agenda |
| 10:30 - 11:00 | Welcome and Coffee |
| 11:00 - 12:30 |
Discussion followed by Q&A with audience |
| 12:30 - 1:30 |
Lunch |