Pollution Is Colonialism

Max Liboiron presents the work of their research group CLEAR, in Newfoundland, with a focus on research into plastic pollution in the bodies of fish. This begins a complex journey through a history of how acceptable levels of pollution were first estimated, to how current research still uses this history despite its inaccuracy, to how this research can be improved, including ideas, thoughts and perspectives from many (not only colonial) scientific perspectives.

Liboiron is a storyteller and an adept researcher, picking the right moments to highlight issues that help emphasise the value of CLEAR's research. They are also a very witty writer, which helps take the sting from the heavier academic sections. The resultant book is hopeful but critical, and the critique is aimed at many areas, including colonial science and environmental action, among other areas. In the end, the long introduction is not really necessary, as the three strong chapters tell the same story of plastic pollution as a colonial action, only with more gusto. If I was to try to summarise the most important idea I found in this, it is that Land is not just earth, but the complex interweaving of critters and objects that form part of its varied self (a point made in this book with a nod to Robin Wall Kimmerer's writing on the same topic). So pollution of land is also pollution in and through these other connected parts.