A Poison Like No Other

How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies

Matt Simon

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English

Island Press
07 January 2025

Mathematics & Sciences; Conservation of the environment; Environmental science, engineering & technology; Coping with illness

It’s falling from the sky and in the air we breathe. It’s in our food, our clothes, and our homes. It’s microplastic and it’s everywhere—including our own bodies. Scientists are just beginning to discover how these tiny particles threaten health,

but the studies are alarming.

In A Poison Like No Other, Matt Simon reveals a whole new dimension to the plastic crisis, one even more disturbing than plastic bottles washing up on shores and grocery bags dumped in landfills. Dealing with discarded plastic is bad enough, but when it starts to break down, the real trouble begins. The very thing that makes plastic so useful and ubiquitous – its toughness – means it never really goes away. It just gets smaller and smaller: eventually small enough to enter your lungs or be absorbed by crops or penetrate a fish’s muscle tissue before it becomes dinner.

Unlike other pollutants that are single elements or simple chemical compounds, microplastics represent a cocktail of toxicity: plastics contain at least 10,000 different chemicals. Those chemicals are linked to diseases from diabetes to hormone disruption to cancers.

A Poison Like No Other is the first book to fully explore this new dimension of the plastic crisis, following the intrepid scientists who travel to the ends of the earth and the bottom of the ocean to understand the consequences of our dependence on plastic. As Simon learns from these researchers, there is no easy fix. But we will never curb our plastic addiction until we begin to recognize the invisible particles all around us.

By: Matt Simon
Imprint: Island Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781642833225
ISBN 10: 1642833223
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 07 January 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1. Welcome to Planet Plastic Chapter 2. A Voyage on the Synthetic Seas Chapter 3. A Land Corrupted Chapter 4. Breathe Deep the Plastic Air Chapter 5. Turning Down the Plastic Tap Acknowledgments Notes About the Author Index

Matt Simon is a science journalist at Wired magazine, where he covers the environment, biology, and robotics. He’s the author of two previous books, Plight of the Living Dead: What Real-Life Zombies Reveal About Our World—and Ourselves and The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar: Evolution's Most Unbelievable Solutions to Life's Biggest Problems. He enjoys long walks on the beach and trying not to think about all the microplastics there.