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The idea for this book was sparked by reflecting on the continual expansion of global plastics production despite international efforts to tackle plastic pollution, the climate crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. I am grateful to Louise Knight at Polity Press for encouraging me to pursue this project and for working with me to help it take shape. I also thank the whole Polity team, particularly Inès Boxman and Justin Dyer for editorial guidance. From the beginning, I was filled with a sense of urgency at the invitation to delve deeper into the corporate roots and toxic consequences of the escalating plastics crisis.

I thank the Leverhulme Trust for providing funding to research and write this book through the Philip Leverhulme Prize. Some parts of chapter 3 are revised versions of work that was originally published in my article ‘Future-Proofing Capitalism: The Paradox of the Circular Economy for Plastics’, Global Environmental Politics, 21(2) (2021): 121–42, available open access, which received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 639583) and the Leverhulme Trust.

Many thanks to two anonymous readers of the manuscript who provided generous and constructive feedback, particularly on nuancing the early history of plastics, the analysis of corporations, and the discussion of waste colonialism. I also thank two readers of the book proposal for their valuable advice on refining the corporate focus of the project. I gratefully acknowledge Nerea Calvillo and Sandra Eckert for offering helpful comments on early drafts, and David Brown for excellent research assistance. A big thanks to the Toxic Expertise research team for collaborative insights over the years into different aspects of the complex global petrochemical industry: David Brown, Thom Davies, Lorenzo Feltrin, Patricio Flores Silva, India Holme, Calvin Jephcote, Alexandra Kviat, Loretta Lou, Thomas Verbeek, Chris Waite, and Xinhong Wang. I am also thankful for the intellectual encouragement from all of my wonderful colleagues at the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick. The final manuscript benefited from my participation in the conference ‘Global Governance of Plastic Pollution: Transforming the Global Plastics Economy’ hosted by the Global Governance Centre at the Graduate Institute in Geneva and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in August 2021. Thanks to Diana Barrowclough, Luisa Cortat, and Carolyn Deere Birkbeck for the invitation to this timely and important event.

Thanks so much to Eric and Kathy Mah for all the support and encouragement, and to Alex, Erica, and Jennifer Mah for inspiring me through living and thinking ecologically. Thank you to Manuela Galetto, Mouzayian Khalil-Babatunde, and Nirmal Puwar for helping to get me through the intensive months of writing during the pandemic with socially distanced walks. Special thanks to Colin Stephen, who read many drafts closely and supported me and my writing in more ways than words can express. This book is dedicated to our son, Lucian, who has some great ideas about how to save the planet.