Hooked on plastic: A timely probe into the brands and greenwashing

Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastics
Harper Collins India
368 pages ₹599
The annual observance of World Environment Day on June 5 goes back to 1973. Led by the United Nations Environment Programme, it is a major occasion for governments and corporations to renew their commitment to environmental causes, take meaningful action and bring new people into the ambit of outreach. It is hosted by a different country each year. In 2025, the Republic of Korea will have that honour. This year's theme is #BeatPlasticPollution.
In this context, journalist Saabira Chaudhuri's book Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic assumes tremendous significance, more so because we are just two months away from a meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee in Geneva, where a global treaty will be negotiated to end plastic pollution. An international, legally binding instrument of this kind seems like an ambitious undertaking but it is the need of the hour.
The author grew up in Bengaluru, obtained an MA in business and economic reporting from New York University, and now lives in London. The book focuses mostly on the United States and India while discussing the history of how plastic became an indispensable part of human life. This historical lens that she adopts is important so that environmental advocacy is grounded in solid facts and not based only on ideology and emotion. We need to have a clear grasp of why plastics became so popular across geographies. They did not emerge out of thin air.
Ms Chaudhuri writes, for instance, 'The Second World War had seen the largest influx of women into the American workforce on record. While many stopped working initially after men returned from the frontlines, a war-born desire for convenient weeknight meals, easy-to-clean surfaces and wrinkle-free clothes did not disappear.' The author's intention here is not to pin the blame for plastic pollution on women. Since the burden of housework was shouldered largely by women, the promise of more time for rest and leisure was understandably quite attractive. Plastic offered them a way out of monotony and drudgery.
In the Indian scenario, Manmohan Singh's decision as finance minister to slash excise duties on shampoo in 1993 put it within the reach of people who could not afford it earlier. Ms Chaudhuri writes, 'Taxes dropped from 120.75 per cent to 70 per cent, making sachets way more profitable.' She also points out that sachets were also appealing to women 'who typically were in charge of buying household essentials' because they 'offered built-in portion control — precluding wayward children or careless husbands from using too much, the way they might from a bottle'. These well-researched culturally specific insights from the author help us look at plastic not as a monster but as a material that has both pros and cons.
This book also helps us make sense of how and why businesses engage in greenwashing, which is a widespread practice of making false, deceptive and unsubstantiated claims of having a positive impact on the environment. Greenwashing is often a tactic used to appear environmentally friendly so as to win over new customers or retain existing ones.
The author examines in detail how in the United States recycling became a 'get-out-of-jail-free card in a situation otherwise riddled with reputational risk'. Instead of any real impact in terms of reducing pollution, it became a marketing campaign to manage public perception. By emphasising this, the author cautions us against being taken for a ride by businesses that are looking to make a quick buck out of our sensitivities that favour being eco-friendly.
Ms Chaudhuri's training as a journalist ensures that she stays cool-headed instead of peddling doomsday predictions. She reminds us that different kinds of plastic melt at different temperatures. 'Even today, mixed plastics recycling is plagued by collection and sorting problems; the resulting park benches and picnic tables have never commanded a high-enough price to justify collecting and cleaning big volumes of often highly contaminated plastics,' she adds. These are realities that people need to know as they grapple with systems that seem outside their control, and also make small changes in their own lives.
The book ends with a useful section titled FAQs, where the author addresses basic but important questions that many do not have reliable answers to. Some of the questions are: Why are plastics recycling rates so slow? What's greener: Cloth diapers or disposables? How can I protect myself against greenwashing? Isn't paper better than plastic? Are bio-based plastics a good alternative to fossil-fuel-based ones? The author offers explanations that are accessible but not simplistic. This book is not the last word on the subject but it is a good start.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Time of India

19 hours ago

• Time of India

The poor's recourse isn't a bank, but moneylenders, mostly

Moneylenders, shopkeepers, and family members constitute the primary sources of emergency funds for the poor, showed a study by Piramal Enterprises , indicating several initiatives to promote financial inclusion are yet to alter the borrowing landscape for the most vulnerable. NBFCs can help bridge the gap and step up the share in formal financing for the marginalized, said Debopam Chaudhuri, chief economist, Piramal Enterprises. Of course, they need some regulatory support, such as the ability to raise fixed deposits and have a liquidity backstop window, he said. The report shows micro-business owners and economically weaker segments (EWS and LIG) remain underserved. "These segments of Bharat continue to depend heavily on informal channels, with banking and fintech innovations yet to significantly make a meaningful impact on their access to formal credit," Chaudhuri stated. The economic aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic triggered major shifts in borrowing behaviour. Reverse migration increased informal and agricultural employment in lower-income states, further boosting dependence on informal credit. "Over 55% of daily-wage households reported active informal loans, even as formal lenders became more cautious due to rising credit risk," Chaudhuri said. The report also reveals stark state-level disparities. While Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka show strong formal credit presence-driven by gold loans and fintech usage-Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal have more than 57% of households relying on informal borrowing. Notably, Punjab has transitioned from a 'high-income, low-borrowing' profile in FY19 to 'high borrowing low income states' implying increasing reliance on informal credit due to lower penetration of financial inclusion. In 2021, borrowing from non-institutional sources was 2.63 times that of borrowing from institutional sources in India, compared to 0.6 times in Brazil and 0.27 times in the USA. "This implies that for every two people borrowing from institutional sources, five people were opting for non-institutional sources of borrowing," Chaudhuri said. More than 55% of households associated with this profession have active loans, largely from non-institutional sources, highlighting both the demand for loans and the lack of supply from institutional sources, Chaudhuri said in his report titled Prevalence Of Non-Institutional Borrowing Among Indian Households: A Pre and Post Covid-19 Analysis.

Time of India

a day ago

• Time of India

Reliance on informal finance persists despite multiple financial inclusion measures: Report

Non-institutional channels of borrowing such as moneylenders, shopkeepers, and family constitute a major chunk of borrowing for the poor despite several initiatives to promote financial inclusion, shows a study by Piramal Enterprises . To enhance the share of formal finance, Debopam Chaudhuri, Chief Economist, Piramal Enterprises, says that non-banking finance companies can step in to bridge this gap, provided they are given access to cheaper resources such as the ability to raise fixed deposits and a liquidity backstop window by the RBI to secure short-term loans for top-tier NBFCs. The findings of the report show micro-business owners and economically weaker segments (EWS and LIG) remain underserved in terms of access to formal credit , while banks and finance companies are targeting Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns for financial inclusion. 'These segments of Bharat continue to depend heavily on informal channels, with banking and fintech innovations yet to significantly make a meaningful impact on their access to formal credit,' Chaudhuri stated. The economic aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered major shifts in borrowing behaviour. Reverse migration increased informal and agricultural employment in lower-income states, further boosting dependence on informal credit. Live Events 'Over 55% of daily-wage households reported active informal loans, even as formal lenders became more cautious due to rising credit risk,' Chaudhuri said. The report also reveals stark state-level disparities. While Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka show strong formal credit presence, driven by gold loans and fintech usage, states like Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal have over 57% of households relying on informal borrowing. Notably, Punjab has transitioned from a 'high-income, low-borrowing' profile in FY19 to a 'high-borrowing, low-income' state, implying increasing reliance on informal credit due to lower penetration of financial inclusion. Data indicate that although there were early signs of a shift from non-institutional to institutional borrowing between FY15 and FY19, the disruptions caused by COVID-19 and the accompanying rise in unemployment reversed this trend. Many borrowers were compelled to return to informal lenders, a pattern that coincided with large-scale urban-to-rural reverse migration and a subsequent increase in agricultural employment triggered by the 2020 lockdowns. At the global level, while other economies, both developed and developing, witnessed a declining trend in the share of non-institutional credit, India observed rising incidences of non-institutional lending vis-à-vis institutional lending. In 2021, borrowing from non-institutional sources was 2.63 times that of borrowing from institutional sources in India, compared to 0.6 times in Brazil and 0.27 times in the USA. 'This implies that for every two people borrowing from institutional sources, five people were opting for non-institutional sources of borrowing,' Chaudhuri said. The data suggest rising risk aversion of institutional lenders to fund daily-wage workers with no long-term work commitments, which has prompted wage labourers to rely on non-institutional moneylenders. More than 55% of households associated with this profession have active loans, largely from non-institutional sources, highlighting both the demand for loans and the lack of supply from institutional sources, Chaudhuri said in his report titled Prevalence Of Non-Institutional Borrowing Among Indian Households: A Pre and Post COVID-19 Analysis. Self-employed entrepreneurs are increasingly relying on non-institutional sources, with the annualised growth of households borrowing from such sources rising at a much faster pace than those borrowing from institutional lenders. 'This depicts increased risk aversion among institutional players to support small businesses,' the report said. In the case of industrial workers and white-collar professionals, incidences of non-institutional borrowing are slowing down due to the advent of new-age fintech lenders and easier access to institutional credit. These cohorts appear to be the biggest beneficiaries of the democratisation of finance currently underway in India, notes the report. Over the last decade, multiple policy initiatives resulted in 77.5% bank account ownership among adults by 2021. Measures like the India Stack, policy interventions such as Jan Dhan (2014), Mudra (2015), Svanidhi (2020), and Vishwakarma (2023) Yojanas, along with the arrival of fintech players who harnessed technology to curate financial services for the previously unbanked population, have contributed to this progress. The data used for this analysis were sourced from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy's (CMIE's) Consumer Pyramid Household Survey (CPHS) dataset. This private agency conducts high-frequency, large-scale surveys that have become increasingly popular for assessing short-term changes in the economic conditions of Indian households. The report says NBFCs can facilitate migration from informal to formal sources of borrowing if they are supported in reducing their funding costs, which would enable passing on to end borrowers,' Chaudhuri said. Measures such as a liquidity backstop window by the RBI to secure short-term loans for top-tier NBFCs can improve their credit ratings and reduce borrowing costs. Additionally, granting deposit-taking licences to well-managed, large NBFCs, with appropriate regulatory safeguards, would allow these institutions to diversify funding sources beyond banks and raise long-term liabilities at lower costs, thereby reducing ALM risks. A dedicated refinancing window for NBFCs is urgently needed to alleviate liquidity concerns. Furthermore, simplifying the ease of doing business for these institutions by lowering the loan amount threshold for enforcing security interests under the SARFAESI Act from ₹20 lakh to ₹1 lakh would be highly beneficial. 'These reforms would equip NBFCs with greater capacity to expand their reach, serving a larger portion of India's population who still struggle to access formal financial services,' said Chaudhuri.

The Hindu

6 days ago

• The Hindu

Hotel group launches greening drive in Tiruchi

The Courtyard by Marriott, Tiruchi, has partnered with the State Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Technology, the Corporation Higher Secondary School, and Sowdambika World School in Tiruchi to plant 432 tree saplings in the city. The initiative was inaugurated on the occasion of World Environment Day on June 5 and so far 247 saplings have been planted, an official release from the hotel chain said. The hotel will continue planting through the year to achieve the target by August 2025, the release added.