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Plastics everywhere, and the myth that made it possible
Cape Times
|January 28, 2026
IF THERE'S one material that defines modern life more than any other, it's plastic: present from the moment we're born in newborn stool, in product packaging, in the soil beneath our feet and the air we breathe.
Hard as it is to imagine, it wasn't always thus -- and doesn't have to remain this way, argues Judith Enck in her new book, "The Problem with Plastics."
"Half of all plastic ever produced was since 2007," the year the iPhone debuted, she said in an interview.
"We have a fighting chance to reduce plastics because it's very much a contemporary issue."
Enck, a former senior environment official under Barack Obama, is clear-eyed about the challenges posed by the "rabidly anti-environmental" President Donald Trump.
Last year, the administration helped derail a global plastics treaty and reversed a phaseout of single-use plastics in national parks.
This story is from the January 28, 2026 edition of Cape Times.
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