Breathing Plastic Air

• In Event: Residues, Traces, and Debris: Inhabiting the Toxic Remains of Empire

Abstract

This paper explores how one plastics factory in Southwest Indiana produces plastic air, and the consequences for how we think about waste, plastic, air quality, and bodily knowledge. In the past ten years, the interest and literature surrounding plastic pollution has exploded, from scientific studies to news coverage to thoughtful and nuanced engagements from the humanities. This interest has corresponded with an exponential rise in plastic production. This paper is interested in a relatively understudied aspect of plastic pollution, but one that is a primary mechanism for plastics to enter the body: plastic in the air. Building on Matthew Huber’s political ecology, which emphasizes the importance of politicizing “the hidden middle ecologies of industrial manufacturing situated between extraction and final consumption” (Huber 2017, 5), this research turns to the experiences of factory workers—one of the populations most exposed to petrochemical pollutants. Rather than focusing on dramatic environmental disasters, this paper examines what I term banal violence, an adaptation of Rob Nixon’s concept of "slow violence" (2011). Here, harmful environmental conditions are normalized and rendered invisible, creating a condition of sustained harm. This plastics factory exemplifies a sacrifice zone that is not marked by stark devastation but instead resembles ordinary life in late-stage American empire. What makes this case particularly troubling is its ordinariness. Through this case study, I show how the normalization of waste and the bodily absorption of pollutants that accompany plastic production are not anomalies but defining features of the biopolitics of late-stage American empire.

Author

• Heather Davis, The New School