Plastic has become emblematic of economies of abundance and ecological destruction. If the post-war 'plastics age' was cleaner and brighter than all that preceded it, this boosterism has now become intertwined with anxiety as the burdens of accumulating plastic wastes register in environments and bodies. This innovative book investigates how plastic accumulates functions, concerns, politics, properties and more.

Introduction: From Materiality to Plasticity Part I: Plastic Materialities 1. Plastics, Materials and Dreams of Dematerialization 2. Process and Plasticity: Printing, Prototyping and the Prospects of Plastic Part II: Plastic Economies 3. Made to Be Wasted: PET and Topologies of Disposability 4. The Material Politics of Vinyl: How the State, Industry and Citizens Created and Transformed West Germany's Consumer Democracy 5. Paying With Plastic: The Enduring Presence of the Credit Card Part III: Plastic Bodies 6. The Death and Life of Plastic Surfaces: Mobile Phones 7. Reflections of an Unrepentant Plastiphobe: An Essay on Plasticity and the STS Life 8. Plasticizers: A Twenty-First Century Miasma 9. Plastics, the Environment and Human Health Part IV: New Articulations 10. Where Does This Stuff Come From? Oil, Plastic and the Distribution of Violence 11. International Pellet Watch: Studies of the Magnitude and Spatial Variation of Chemical Risks Associated with Environmental Plastics 12. Plastic and the Work of the Biodegradable