Plastics: good, bad, ugly?
Elena Priesen-Reis explores the multifaceted problem of plastic pollution through the lens of its changing role in society.
The issues surrounding plastic pollution are some of the most recent and discussed worries of humanity. Moderating plastic usage and adopting more environmentally friendly habits has been (somewhat) encouraged by charities and government schemes for decades, without any satisfying success. It is only recently, now the impacts of human actions have become undeniable, that the pursuit for solutions to this problem has generated some momentum. However, although it may currently sound sacrilegious to ask, are all plastics ‘bad’?
To answer this, it’s important to consider the history and current use of plastics, as well as some common misconceptions embedded in the public psyche.
Plastics are categorised as either thermosets (materials that cannot be reheated and reused after initial formation) or thermoplastics (which can be reformed with heat and reused) and are mostly synthetic, consisting of long chains of polymers: large molecules formed by joining many identical smaller molecules called monomers. These polymers are strong, flexible, and lightweight. Over the last 150 years, despite the feasibility of being synthesised from natural sources such as cellulose (cotton fibres), the preferred sources have remained products of crude oil.
The first synthetic polymer, a thermoplastic labelled celluloid, was patented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1869 to imitate natural substances used for billiard balls such as horn and ivory. The realisation that humanity could forge its own materials, rather than being completely reliant on natural ones, sparked a revolution; one that benefited communities economically and socially by making material wealth easier to obtain, while relieving the stress of material demand on the environment.
Soon after, the need for a natural electrical insulator for a world increasingly reliant on electricity for industrial and domestic use became the incentive for bakelite, the first purely synthetic plastic, invented in 1907 by Leo Baekeland. Bakelite was malleable, durable, heat resistant, and ideal for mass production. Its success gave rise to the plastic industry.
Plastics made their major debut during the Second World War, with production in the US increasing by 300%; nylon replaced silk in parachutes, ropes, body armour, helmet liners, and plexiglas provided a glass alternative for aircraft windows. Post-war, the frenzy continued as the benefits of plastics seemed endless - cheap, safe, sanitary, and adaptable to every need. A seemingly utopian ability was granted to humanity, the ability to combine and transmute the elements into infinite configurations of choice, without consequence.
This optimism didn’t last long. The “Swinging Sixties” was a decade of rapid change for Britain; revolutions in music, fashion, gender roles, and technology, fuelled by feverish waves of post-war excitement, were joined by improved environmental and ethical awareness. Gradually, blind trust and traditional deference towards authority figures were replaced by suspicion and apprehension, and as knowledge of climate issues increased, plastic’s (and hence plastic waste’s) durability - the very quality that was previously praised - began to trouble sensitive consumers. However, at this stage the full extent of the damage being inflicted on the environment was still obscure.
A total of 7.8 billion tonnes of plastic was produced between 1950 and 2015: a number exceeding the total number of people currently living on the planet. Even if we were to cease expelling any more plastic waste expelled into the ocean, macroplastics would persist for many more decades- not only are the existing plastics extremely durable, but there are also large reservoirs of plastics on shorelines capable of drifting to offshore regions. Unfortunately, the sustained levels of macroplastics in the ocean would proceed to be decomposed by natural processes such as UV radiation and erosion, increasing the concentration of the microscopic menace of plastic waste.
For wildlife, and for humanity, microplastics have numerous detrimental impacts. As the number of plastic fragments in the environment increases, their relatively large surface area to volume ratio allows for effective attraction of chemicals and fertilisers present in the water, while their size means that they can be easily ingested by marine animals, which become injured or poisoned as a result. In this way, toxin “biomagnification” - the increase in toxin concentration with advancement through the food chain- can occur, finally reaching humans. The health effects of this are still unknown.
Nevertheless, despite the tremendous environmental concern surrounding the emerging populations of microplastics, it would also be false to assume that the best solution for civilisation and natural ecosystems is to prohibit plastic altogether.
Plastic fulfils many important roles in modern society. Inexpensive plastics raised living standards and made many common possessions formerly reserved for the wealthy more widely available. Plastic is an excellent material for food and medical packaging; although excess packaging and single-use plastics definitely pose a problem, food loss, wastage, and contamination are significantly reduced. Not only do plastics protect populations from potentially harmful germs, according to the British Plastics Federation their relatively lighter weight compared to packaging alternatives reduces the number of vehicles needed to carry the same amount of goods, hence requiring less fuel, saving resources, and reducing carbon emissions associated with transportation.
Attempts to deviate from plastic in our daily lives also have their issues.The environmental impacts of different materials depend heavily on their suitability for the task, as well as how they are managed preceding, throughout, and at the end of their “lifetime”. Ill-suited materials have the potential to be substantially more environmentally harmful, and unfortunately many incidences of this occur due to simple misunderstanding; some plastic bag alternatives have high environmental impacts and would require many reuses to make them environmentally worthwhile. An “environmentally- friendly” organic cotton bag, for instance, would actually have to be reused 149 times to have as low greenhouse gas emissions as an LDPE (Low Density Polyethene) bag. This increases to 20,000 times when eutrophication, water and ecosystem impacts are considered, as severe marine pollution can result due to excessive growth of algae.
Even if plastic pollution may seem almost impossible to escape, humans have an innate intellectual curiosity and affinity for innovation, especially in the face of adversity. For instance, researchers succeeded in isolating a soil fungus able to break down polyester polyurethane from a general city waste disposal site in Islamabad, Pakistan, making plastic elimination in the environment through biodegradation conceivable.
After recognising the daily plastic malpractices by the public, and becoming aware of the power of resourcefulness and imagination in tackling the global mismanagement of plastic, it can be seen that the plastic industry cannot solely be blamed for this “microplastic menace”; the responsibility lies with producers and consumers to make environmentally conscious decisions concerning the sources, quantity, and disposal of plastics, and to be innovative with possible solutions to decrease reliance on plastics. Choices often involve balancing trade-offs, and it is our responsibility to ensure that the consequences are as minimally environmentally damaging as possible.