Saabira Chaudhuri

Saabira Chaudhuri

From Saabira’s home page:

I am a business journalist with nearly two decades of experience covering the world’s largest companies across consumer goods and banking, as well as writing about development efforts in emerging markets. Much of my work over the past few years has focused on the impact that big business is having on our environment, our health and the way we live.

​​​I spent 12 years as a staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal in London and New York, stepping down in May 2025. Before that I worked on staff for Dow Jones newswires, Forbes, Mint (the business newspaper) and Fast Company.

​​​​​​I wrote my book, Consumed – How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic, after several years of reporting for the Wall Street Journal on the struggles consumer goods companies were having in responding to the public’s increasingly negative perception of plastics. Consumed, which was published by Bonnier in May 2025, is a narrative non-fiction investigation of the global plastics crisis through a corporate lens, lifting the lid on why decades of promised “solutions” by the world’s biggest consumer goods companies have failed and why they will continue to fail unless we rewrite the rules by which business is done. It’s been long-listed for the FT and Schroders Business Book of the Year 2025 award and described by Chris van Tulleken as “really, really funny.”

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​I grew up in Bangalore and later spent over a decade studying and working in the U.S. I got my BA in sociology from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and, despite persistent homesickness, stuck around long enough to graduate Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. I spent my year abroad studying law and sociology at the London School of Economics. I was awarded the Wall Street Journal’s fully-funded Asia fellowship to New York University where I earned an MA in Business and Economic Reporting.

​​​​I now live in London with my husband, two children and our Greek dog, Suzy.


839: Saabira Chaudhuri: Consumed: Throwaway Plastic Has Corrupted Us

Reading Saabira’s New York Times piece Throwaway Plastic Has Corrupted Us told me she saw more about plastic and its effect on our culture than most. A quote from it: “The social costs of our addiction to disposable plastics are more subtle but significant. Cooking skills have declined. Sit-down family meals are less common. Fast fashion, enabled by synthetic plastic fibers, is encouraging compulsive consumption and waste.”

Her tenure at the Wall Street Journal told me she would communicate it effectively, pulling no punches. As much as I prefer not to link to social media, this video review by Chris van Tulleken, bestselling author of Ultra-Processed People, is about as positive a review as I’ve seen, all the more since he clarifies that he doesn’t know her.

So I invited her to talk about her book Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic. It launches today (October 7) in the US, so I’ve only finished the beginning, but it delivers. In our conversation, she describes what to expect when you read it, plus her back story driving her to write it.

Many reviews describe her humor. You’ll hear that I held back from asking her about how she worked humor into the topic, since she’s not a comedian so I wouldn’t expect to perform unprepared, but no worry, she made me laugh unprompted and shared more humor from the book. Obviously it’s a serious topic, and Saabira’s work shows how much more serious than you probably thought, but being depressed doesn’t help solve it.

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