Plastic - Global Overview

We need to drastically change our relationship with a product we use for 12 seconds but lasts for 450 years

Plastic has existed for less than 150 years and it has managed to create so much destruction in the environment but also to ourselves. For the last 2 years we have been bombarded on the news about all the problems plastic is creating.

This week we are bringing awareness on all the ways plastic is polluting Planet Earth.

Once a completely natural product, much of today's plastic is man-made and largely dependent upon fossil fuels. From polymers to nurdles, learn how plastic is created and what we can do to slow the lasting repercussions this material will have on both our planet and our lives.

History of Plastic
Plastic originally means “pliable and easily shaped.” It is only now that it means a category of materials called polymers. The word polymer means “of many parts,” and polymers are made of long chains of molecules. Polymers can be found in nature, like Cellulose for example, the material that makes up the cell walls of plants, which is a very common naturally occurring polymer.

Only the last century and a half humans have learned how to make synthetic polymers,

sometimes using natural substances like cellulose, but more often using the plentiful carbon atoms provided by petroleum and other fossil fuels. Synthetic polymers are made up of long chains of atoms, arranged in repeating units, often much longer than those found in nature. It is the length of these chains, and the patterns in which they are arrayed, that make polymers strong, lightweight, and flexible. In other words, it’s what makes them so plastic.

With these properties, synthetic polymers are exceptionally useful, and since we learned how to create and manipulate them, polymers have dominated our daily lives. Especially over the last 50 years plastics have saturated our world and changed the way that we live.

From then on, plastics have rapidly become one of the most commonplace materials on the planet. In 2015, global plastic production reached 407 million tonnes per annum with more plastic produced in the last decade than ever before

The First Synthetic Plastic
The first synthetic polymer was invented by Alexander Parkes in 1855, who named his invention Parkesine and in 1907 Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite, the first fully synthetic, plastic, meaning it contained no molecules found in nature, and it was the first mass produced plastic.

Baekeland used phenol, an acid derived from coal tar. His work created the now-very-well- known synthetic plastics - polystyrene in 1929, polyester in 1930, polyvinylchloride (PVC) and polythene in 1933, nylon in 1935.

World War II was a point in time that had a great influence on the expansion of the plastic industry in the United States. Nylon, was used for parachutes, ropes, body armor, helmet liners, and more. Plexiglas provided an alternative to glass for aircraft windows. During World War II plastic production in the United States increased by 300%.

The unblemished optimism about plastics didn’t last for very long. In the postwar years there was a shift how people perceived plastic, and it was not positive. The reputation that plastic is a potential threat to human health made people more aware what is not so great as it was shown to be. Furthermore,  plastic debris in the oceans was first observed in the 1960s. Anxiety about waste increased because, while so many plastic products are disposable, plastic lasts forever in the environment.

What will be the future of plastic? How are we dealing with this modern threat?

This week at the Conscious club we will be tackling the most important problem we are faced with regarding plastic. Here’s an overview:

Plastic & Different Qualities
Have you ever stopped and wondered how exactly plastic is made? Did you know that there are seven different categories of plastic and only two out seven can be recycled. By learning more about this categories, you will be able to make more conscious choices and recycle more efficient.

Many of us can recognize the packaging of a product but we don't know which category it fall into. It is important to know in order to avoid buying the most damaging to the environment plastic.The plastics have a number identification associated with them. These numbers were introduced by the Society of the Plastics Industry in 1988 to help people know which plastics are recyclable and how to properly dispose of the others.  Let’s take a closer look at the seven popular types of plastics.

Plastic & Ocean & Land
While plastic has many valuable uses, we have become addicted to single-use or disposable plastic — with severe environmental consequences.

Did you know that around the world,  one million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute, while up to 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are used worldwide every year. In total, half of all plastic produced is is a single-use-plastic, meaning that it will only get used once — and then be thrown away. So little of the plastic currently used is being recycled, ending up on landfills, land and oceans.

How does plastics ends up on our Ocean? While some is dumped directly into the seas, an estimated 80 percent of marine litter makes its way there gradually from land-based sources―including those far inland―via storm drains, sewers, and other routes.

We’ve all been told that we should recycle plastic bottles and containers. But what actually happens to the plastic if we just throw it away? Emma Bryce traces the life cycles of three different plastic bottles, shedding light on the dangers these disposables present to our world.

Plastic & Recycling
Recycling is a struggle. You endlessly try to find a place to do it and feel pleased when you succeed. But your effort is so inadequate and distracts from the real problem of why the building is collapsing in the first place. The real problem is that single-use plastic—the very idea of producing plastic items like grocery bags, which we use for an average of 12 minutes but can persist in the environment for half a millennium—is an incredibly reckless abuse of technology.

Plastic & Clothing
It’s no secret that too many of the plastic products we use end up in the ocean. But you might not be aware of one major source of that pollution: our clothes.

New studies indicate that the fibers in our clothes could be poisoning our waterways and food chain on a massive scale. Microfibers – tiny threads shed from fabric – have been found in abundance on shorelines where waste water is released.

Plastic & the Great pacific Garbage Patch
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is the largest of the five offshore plastic accumulation zones in the world’s oceans. It is located halfway between Hawaii and California. More than 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic in the patch that weigh an estimated 80,000 tonnes. These figures are much higher than previous calculations.

What do you do to use less plastic? By tagging us with #theconsciouschallenge you can share your ideas!

Want to contribute to our Ecological Footprint Bible? Submit us your scientific articles! Mail us at info@theconsciouschallenge.org

Sources :

https://www.sciencehistory.org/the-history-and-future-of-plastics
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~iispacs/Education/EARS18/Plastic_2013/History%20of%20Plastics/History%20of%20Plastics.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27442625
https://www.plasticseurope.org/en/about-plastics/what-are-plastics/history
https://www.tecnofer.biz/en/history-of-plastic/
https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-plastics-1992322
https://www.bpf.co.uk/plastipedia/plastics_history/default.aspx
http://www.historyofplastic.com/