Plastic Sucks! How You Can Reduce Single-Use Plastic & Save Our Planet by Dougie Poynter, 183 pp, RL 4
Plastic Sucks! How You Can Reduce
Single-Use Plastic & Save Our Planet
by Dougie Poynter
Review Copy from Macmillan Kids
Plastic Sucks! How You Can Reduce Single-Use Plastic & Save Our Planet reads like a more complex, older kid's version of Kids Fight Plastic: 50 Missions to Help Save the Oceans by Martin Dorey, founder of the 2 Minute Foundation, which is dedicated to cleaning the plastic off the our beaches, among many other eco-conscious missions. Plastic Sucks! has everything it takes to reach a big audience - in England. And hopefully America. Originally published in the U.K. in 2019, author Poynter is a musician, model and environmental activist who dedicated his book to Sir David Attenborough. While I am very grateful that Macmillan chose to publish a U.S. version of this book - it is fantastic, from content to graphics to trims size - I hope that someday very soon an American celebrity who is also an environmental activist, especially when it comes to single use plastic, creates a book that will draw attention of Americans to the urgent, important need to reduce and eliminate this toxic pollutant.
Like Dorey's book, Plastic Sucks! is the perfect blend of facts and statistics, the history of plastic and how it became such a prevalent part of our lives, along with an invitation to readers to really look in their cupboards and cabinets and take stock of the single-use plastic in their homes and how they can eliminate it, along with guidance on how to do this and suggestions on environmentally friendly products to replace these items with. Plastic Sucks! is packed with ideas for readers on things they can do, encouraging readers repeatedly and enthusiastically, assuring them that they CAN make a difference, and it can even be easy! From "How to Make a Delicious, Plastic-Free Packed Lunch!" to how to throw a plastic-free party and, something I especially love and find vital, Poynter provides readers with ideas for a "Bring Your Own Kit," so that when you are out for the day or traveling, you can avoid single-use plastic in the form of straws, water bottles, cutlery, storage containers, bags and more!
What Poynter brings to his book that is extra-special, and sure to really inspire readers, are the experts. Poynter features interviews with fifteen-plus different experts, from scientists to environmentalist to conservation experts and leaders of nonprofits around the world working (in very creative ways) to reduce the single-use plastic in the world and protect the ocean and wild life that is suffering from it. Poynter has a set of questions that he asks each expert, creating a recurring theme for readers to pick up on while also being inspired by, often "ordinary" people who saw a problem and found a solution and created jobs that readers may not have thought existed. At the end of the book, Poynter answers the questions himself, showing readers that, even if you grow up doing something other than study science and environmental conservation (like play the bass and guitar in McFly) and even if it's not your career as an adult, you can be passionate and active and inspire others.
