Turning the Tide on Plastic by Lucy Siegle – Book Review

Turning the Tide on Plastic by Lucy Siegle is an eye-opening book about our dirty relationship with plastic. It’s a material that is flexible, colourful, light, abundant and almost indestructible.

Lucy says she wants to “unwrap everything about plastic – from it’s creation to its likely destruction – to equip you with the latest information in order to make up your own mind about the use and misuse of plastic, and give you practical tips and strategies to help you make choices or changes today to help our planet of tomorrow.”

The book is broken up into two parts – with the first part talking about why plastic is used and how we are trashing the planet. The second part is about changing and reducing our plastic footprint. Each of these chapters is based on a new strategy: record, reduce, replace, refuse, reuse, refill, rethink and recycle.

Did you know?

1. Enough plastic is thrown away every year to circle the world 4 times
2. More than 8 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans each year
3. 300 million tonnes of new plastic is produced every year
4. An estimated 15-51 trillion pieces of plastic now litter the world’s oceans
5. 38.5 million plastic bottles are used every day in the UK
6. A million plastic bottles are used per minute around the world
7. 500 million plastic straws are used per year

Turning the Tide definitely made me turn around my careless attitude to plastic.

Turning the Tide on Plastic by Lucy Siegle is currently available as hardback, paperback and ebook.

ISBN: 9781409182986

Imprint: Trapeze

About Lucy Siegle

Journalist, broadcaster and eco expert Lucy Siegle has had a weekly prime time TV slot dedicated to battling waste plastic (The One Show, BBC1) and a decade of experience as the Observer and Guardian’s Ethical Living columnist. Lucy founded the Green Carpet Challenge with Livia Firth to address consumption and sustainability in the fashion industry, and recently worked on environmental projects with Emma Watson and Ellie Goulding. She is well known for her enthusiasm, optimism and playful authority. She recently chaired a panel of some of the world’s most exciting plastic activists planning a post-plastic future at the third UN Environment Assembly in Kenya.