Saabira Chaudhuri | How We Got Hooked on Plastic

Sun 23 Nov 2025 | 6:00pm - 7:00pm

Like any addiction, our plastic habit has consequences. It is damaging our climate and our health – from microplastics found in our hearts and brains, to the rubbish truck of waste that enters the ocean every single minute.

How did plastic take over our lives so completely? And why have we been unable to rein it in? Over the past seventy years, brands such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and Unilever built their business models on disposability, persuading us to embrace bottled water, disposable diapers, sachets and single-use packaging as though we couldn’t live without them.

In Consumed, Wall Street Journal reporter Saabira Chaudhuri investigates how we got here, and what it will take to break free from this cycle of disposability. By understanding the history of our plastic dependence, we can stop accepting failed solutions and start demanding better from the corporations that got us hooked in the first place.

In conversation with Megan Kenyon

Venue: Old Divinity School

Duration: 1 hour

Tickets available soon.

Author Biography

Saabira Chaudhuri has covered consumer goods companies for the Wall Street Journal for the past decade, reporting on plastics, waste and sustainability, among other topics, from the US, India, UK and elsewhere in Europe. She has an MA in business and economic reporting from New York University and a BA in sociology from Mount Holyoke College. Saabira lives in London with her husband, two children and dog. She grew up in Bangalore, India, where she first developed her fascination with what we throw away.