Plastic, Ugh
Photo by Camille Dronne
You may remember the 80s when people were very, very into plastic. (This has actually been the case since the 1940s when plastic hit the scene as the new dream material.) Times have changed.
First, let’s clarify one thing that a lot of people don’t know: plastic is made out of petroleum. The same stuff that powers (gasoline) cars and airplanes, makes polyester clothing, and is the base ingredient in most lip balms (‘petroleum jelly’ - yum). Chewing gum is even made of plastic. The stuff is everywhere.
Plastic is everywhere, and, actually, quite understandably so - it has a lot of unusual properties. First, it’s cheap: cheaper than just about any other material. Second, it’s crazy versatile (see above). Third, it’s super high performance. The reason why plastic bags take 50 billion years (I’m exaggerating, but only sort of) to disintegrate is because they’re crazy resilient. The fact that you can fish a plastic bag out of a landfill 50 years after it was buried and use it to carry your groceries is a major triumph from a materials engineering perspective — but devastating from an environmental perspective. They weren’t meant to last that long.
We’re increasingly aware of plastic because it’s becoming impossible to ignore - we’ve seen the mountain-ranges of garbage, the dolphins swimming in lagoons of A&P bags. We know less than 10% of plastic actually gets recycled. As a result, there’s a growing movement to find plastic alternatives and reduce plastic use (especially disposable) overall. So far, the results are in terms of plastic-use growth slowing — there hasn’t been a net reduction detected yet.
Hence the love lost; plastic has been wonderful in its own ways, but we’re cheering on the next phase!