Margaret Atwood: Plastics are poisoning us. We need change, now

In a new series marking the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the novelist calls for a revolt against petrochemical polymers

Ah, the Reformation. And then, inevitably, the Counter-Reformation. We remember them, sort of, especially after reading Dissolution, CJ Sansom's detective thriller about the shutting down of and, not incidentally, the looting of rich but decadent English monasteries under Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. Or after watching the bloodflow and interfrying of both Catholics and Protestants in various TV series set during various Tudor regimes, most recently Wolf Hall.

Printing the Bible in the vernacular could get you executed. So could attempting to blow up parliament in aid of a Catholic restoration, like Guy Fawkes, which has given us a legacy of those creepy masks sported by members of the online group Anonymous. Then there was Oliver Cromwell, who broke a lot of priceless stained-glass windows in the name of a reformed religion, and made himself so unpopular with monarchists that his corpse was dug up and beheaded.