If everything containing plastic disappeared tomorrow, how would you manage? This story takes place during a week in a hot late summer set in a fictional city and its surrounding towns and villages somewhere on the North West coast of Lancashire. Following a series of unaccountable explosions, a fine powdery dust settles on everything. Archaeologist Jack Dale and TV presenter Ella Grundy, together with her fiance Environmental Health Officer, Todd Wray investigate the source of the dust. Plastic items start to disappear and normal life grinds to a halt as people discover how much they take for granted. The loss of electric cable insulation causes huge difficulties as well as numerous seals, coatings, clothing and tyres. Having eliminated sources, they learn the dust is made up of fungal spores which are reducing all manner of plastic to its molecular structure, leaving useless residue and releasing noxious chemicals causing logistical and health problems. As the circumstances rapidly worsen and the problem grows, scientist Fraser Irwin struggles to find how the spores developed, how they spread and with luck, a way of controlling or containing them ... before it is too late."