Plastic: An Autobiography — Allison Cobb Nightboat Books, 2021
In 2012, Patricia Corcoran, Charles Moore, and Kelly Jazvac coined the term “plastiglomerates” to describe the peculiar geological phenomenon of rock sediment fusing to plastic refuse, a fossil-like embodiment of the Anthropocene. Allison Cobb’s Plastic: An Autobiography (2021) begins with a similar entanglement of synthetic materials as she collects an unidentifiable, discarded plastic part near her home. Like an artefact, the plastic will sit by Cobb’s desk and eventually accompany her on many cross-country trips as she attempts to locate the origins of its creation.
contains, in fact, many biographies beyond Cobb’s own story. Like the splintered fragments of roadside litter
