Plastic has been found on practically every beach on earth, according to the book Plastic: A Toxic Love Story.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Plastic's gotten a bad rap during the past few years. As it builds up and chokes sea life in oceanic mega-dumps, researchers are also piling up data showing it's building up and harming all of us, too. But live without it? Impossible! Rodale.com editors found that out the hard way during our plastic-free February challenge, when people from around the world joined us in eliminating as much plastic from daily life as possible. Even if you missed our challenge in February, now is a great time to make a pact to keep unnecessary plastic out of your life. After all, Friday is Earth Day!

And that's the gist of the new book, Plastic: A Toxic Love Story (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011). Author Susan Freinkel doesn't totally trash plastic (in fact, she says it has its place), but instead she outlines ways to reduce wasteful, shortsighted uses. (Freinkel even referred to the Rodale.com Plastic-Free challenge in a recent New York Times op-ed piece.)

We spoke with Freinkel about the release of her new book, and about going plastic free in general.

Rodale.com: Why did you decide to write a book about plastic in the first place?

Susan Freinkel: I live in San Francisco where there’s been discussion and debate about plastic for a number of years. Around the time the city decided to ban plastic bags, I decided to see what it would be like to spend a day without touching anything plastic. I realized the folly of that goal 10 seconds into the appointed day when I walked in to the bathroom and encountered the plastic toilet seat. So instead I decided to spend the day writing down everything I touched that was plastic. By day’s end, I had a huge list, filled with things I already knew were plastic—like sandwich baggies or my sneakers—as well as things I hadn’t realized were plastic, such as our front doorknob, which on close inspection I discovered was only painted to look like brass. I was surprised to see how thoroughly synthetic materials permeated my life. I realized I knew very little about what plastic was, where it came from, or how it had become—just in the space of my lifetime—the dominant material of modern life. The book was an attempt to answer those questions.

Rodale.com: Could you share the top three most startling plastic stats you found while researching for your book?

SF: The most staggering to me is the escalating volume of plastics production: We’ve produced nearly as much plastic in the first 10 years of the 21st century as in the entire 20th century. Second is our dismal failure to keep these valuable materials in use: Only about 7 percent of the plastic consumed in the U.S. each year is recycled. Even in the case of the most successfully recycled plastic product—the beverage bottle—only about a quarter are recycled. And most of those are recycled in China. Third is the environmental impact of these ubiquitous, persistent materials: Plastic has been found on virtually every beach on the planet and more than 180 species of animals on land and sea have been documented to eat plastic debris.

Rodale.com: What plastic exposures concern you most in terms of impact on human health?

SF: Not all plastics contain or leach harmful chemicals. But some plastic products have been shown to leach endocrine-disrupting chemicals such as bisphenol A, phthalates, or fire retardants. These chemicals have their greatest impacts at certain critical phases of development, so I am particularly worried about products that we know will be used by pregnant women, infants, young children, or teens—such as infant formula cans that contain BPA. Phthalates have been banned from children’s toys, but they are still so widely used in consumer goods made of soft vinyl, and found in things ranging from yoga mats and flips-flops to floor tiles and cable sheathing, that it is very difficult for kids at vulnerable ages to escape exposure. It’s particularly disturbing that infants and children being treated in hospitals receive blood, medications, and nutrients from vinyl IV bags and tubing that leach phthalates into their systems. I’m frustrated that safer alternatives to some of these chemicals do exist but are not yet being widely used. What concerns me most, however, is not any single chemical or product, but the fact that we all sustain a daily barrage from scores of synthetic chemicals whose health effects have not been adequately assessed.