Earth Day Plastic-Free Prize Pack Giveaway {Book & More}

plastic book

We’ve got another chance for you to win a great new book here on Planetsave, but it’s not only a book you could win. The “plastic-free prize pack” (see the image below) includes a starter kit for living green, a tote bag, food containers, a water bottle and more (see the full list, 10 items in total, and how to enter at the bottom of the page).

The giveaway is to promote an excellent new book on now-ubiquitous plastic and its history, Plastic: A Toxic Love Story. Here’s more from the team organizing the giveaway:

Plastic built the modern world. Where would we be without bike helmets, baggies, toothbrushes, and pacemakers? But a century into our love affair with plastic, we’re starting to realize it’s not such a healthy relationship. Plastics draw on dwindling fossil fuels, leach harmful chemicals, litter landscapes, and destroy marine life. As journalist Susan Freinkel points out in this engaging and eye-opening book, we’re nearing a crisis point. We’ve produced as much plastic in the past decade as we did in the entire twentieth century. We’re drowning in the stuff, and we need to start making some hard choices.

Here are just a few of the fascinating, and often startling, revelations:

  • In 1960, the average American consumed 30 pounds of plastics a year.  Today, just 50 years later, Americans consume on average 300 pounds a year.
  • We’ve produced nearly as much plastic in the first ten years of the new millennium, as in the entire preceding century.
  • All Americans now carry traces of dozens of synthetic chemicals in their bodies – including fire retardants, bactericides, pesticides, plasticizers, solvents, heavy metals, waterproofing agents, stain repellents, Teflon and other compounds. Even newborns harbor chemicals – on average 200, according to one study.
  • Plastic debris is now found in even the most remote places, like the Antarctic Ocean.
  • Though most plastic can be recycled, almost none is. Only plastic beverage bottles and milk jugs, #1 and # 2 plastics are recycled in any great numbers. Even so, nearly three-fourths never get into the recycling stream, and instead wind up in landfill or incinerators

Freinkel gives us the tools we need with a blend of lively anecdotes and analysis. She combs through scientific studies and economic data, reporting from China and across the United States to assess the real impact of plastic on our lives. She tells her story through eight familiar plastic objects: comb, chair, Frisbee, IV bag, disposable lighter, grocery bag, soda bottle, and credit card. Her conclusion: we cannot stay on our plastic-paved path. And we don’t have to. Plastic points the way toward a new creative partnership with the material we love to hate but can’t seem to live without.

Praise for PLASTIC:

“Through eight household items including the comb, credit card, and soda bottle. . . . [Freinkel] takes readers to factories in China, where women toil 60-hour weeks for $175 a month to make Frisbees; to preemie wards, where the lifesaving vinyl tubes that deliver food and oxygen to premature babies may cause altered thyroid function, allergies, and liver problems later in life. Freinkel’s smart, well-written analysis of this love-hate relationship is likely to make plastic lovers take pause, plastic haters reluctantly realize its value, and all of us understand the importance of individual action, political will, and technological innovation in weaning us off our addiction to synthetics.” Publishers Weekly

“It turns out that plastic is not only an ongoing environmental peril, but a compulsively interesting story.” —Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth, founder 350.org

“The first step to creating change is understanding, and the first step to understanding anything to do with plastic is reading Susan Freinkel’s compelling, much-needed, and truly brilliant book.” —David de Rothschild, Leader of the Plastiki Expedition

“A must-read, and a fun-read, for anyone who wonders how our society became so plastics-saturated and who wants to do something about it.” —Annie Leonard, author of The Story of Stuff

“Plastic is everywhere, and Susan Freinkel explains why. Plastic: A Toxic Love Story is gracefully written and deeply informative.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe

About the Author:

Susan Freinkel has written for the New York TimesDiscover, Smithsonian, and Health, among other publications. She is the author of The American Chestnut, which Mary Roach called “a perfect book” and Richard Preston described as “a beautifully written account” filled with “top-notch” writing and reporting.

How to Win the Prize Pack

The Sweepstakes ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on April 25, 2011. One winner will be picked in a random drawing from all who enter via the entry form linked here: enter the sweepstakes here!

View the full terms and conditions here.

What’s in the Prize Pack?

Here’s a full list of what’s being included in the prize pack:

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