An interactive article exploring our relationship with plastic
Chapter 1
Intro: What exactly is plastic?
plastic
/ˈplæstɪk/noun
a syntheticpolymer that is highly versatile and can be molded into anything
with no molecules found in naturesubstance made of repeating units (monomers)
Plastic is such a phenomenal material and now has become almost inherent to contemporary living. It had significant cultural, political, economic and environmental impacts on the world. We use the term plastic as a general name for something that is malleable. We use it as if it was a single material. In fact, there are a thousand types of plastic depending on its composition and structure. Commodity plastics (plastics used in high volumes for production of consumer goods) are categorised into seven types to provide a universal recycling system (Figure 1). This article explores commodity plastic, its lifecycle, origins as well as why it can be problematic (not because "it is just bad for the environment" 😅)
Plastic lifecycle: above and beyond your consumption
Plastic has a complex lifecycle that involves economic, political, environmental and social aspects. Pre-life of plastic includes extraction of natural resources and production of plastic itself and plastic products. After-life is the time after consumption (waste and disposal).
Pre-life
Raw materials (mostly crude oil, natural gas and coal) are extracted. Over 99% of plastic in the world is made from fossil fuels even though it can be made from plants such as corn and sugar cane 😢 We really should keep the fossils in the ground!
Resources are refined to get rid of unwanted particles and turned into monomers through a heating process (called cracking).
Monomers are combined to form polymers (polymerisation).
Polymers are compounded and processed (different polymers are melted and mixed to create a single material that can be transformed into any shape and colour).
After-life
Disposal of commodity plastic is a serious problem because it does not biodegrade or decompose (because it is fully synthetic = no molecule found in nature). Therefore, it does not go away. It can only photodegrade and be broken down into micro and nano plastics, which takes many years.
As of 2015, only 9% of all plastic in the world was recycled and 79% had been sent to landfill or leaked into the environment (Ritchie & Roser 2018). To summarise the situation:
Every bit of plastic ever created is still on our planet, mostly in our natural environments, in the guts of marine animals, and a little bit in us.
Chapter 3
History & cultural and social implications
Plastic production skyrocketed from the 1960s globally. Part of this boom was due to World War 2. Just in a few years humanity went from scarcity and deprivation of wartime to a utopia of plenty. There was constant marketing of plastic as a material that could meet all demands and bring luxury and comfort to everyone around the world. It was a novel cheap material that could last forever. As a result, it changed the way people lived creating a throwaway culture. Throwing away disposable products was seen as modernity and efficiency. Ordinary people could now buy many colourful and clean things. Plastic was a representation of a new, modern world.
This way, it has played a significant role in the development of capitalism. Plastic production is often criticised as a basis of advanced capitalism as well as consumerism that proliferated around it. Today plastic has become such a ubiquitous material and is used to an extremely unsustainable level.
Chapter 4
The problem with plastic
Contribution to carbon emissions and climate change
Every stage of the plastic lifecycle is very carbon intensive (extraction and transportation of the fossil fuels, refining and manufacturing, waste management). Thus, it contributes to global carbon emissions and climate change significantly.
Global primary production of plastic was 381 million tonnes in 2015
In case your brain just skimmed the 381 million tonnes, it is 381 000 000 000 kg. Try to compare it to your weight to imagine how much it is 😬
Figure 2 shows how rapidly the global plastic production increased since the 1950s. In 65 years, it increased for 379 million tonnes (from 2 million to 381million tonnes).
How much do you think this data has changed since 2015? How do you think the Covid-19 pandemic affected it?
About 40% of plastic is packaging (Figure 3)
Plastic packaging is problematic because it is designed mostly for single-use and extremely hard to recycle. The use of multi-layered packaging makes collection, separation and recycling complicated. Sadly, it is cheaper to produce new plastic because of low cost of virgin materials (fossil fuel). Also, recycling is rarely profitable.
Three ways that plastic can be disposed of are recycling, landfill and incineration
The best way to dispose of plastic is to recycle. But as mentioned earlier, only 9% of all plastic in the world was recycled.
Sending plastic to landfill? Firstly, landfills are supposed to very slowly decompose or biodegrade waste. But commodity plastic itself doesn’t biodegrade, so every time we send plastic to landfill, we are just burying it there forever. It will break down into smaller particles (micro and nano) but still be there, just in the form of smaller particles. Note there is also biodegradable plastics made from plants. They can be fully decomposed or biodegrade as the name suggests.
This is where the term plastic causes confusion. Using plastic for anything that is malleable makes it hard when people try to be sustainable. Marketers also use this opportunity to greenwash consumers. There is so much conflicting information out there, simply because the information refers to different types of plastic with different characteristics and structures. Technically, they are different materials but everything is called plastic.
Incineration facilities usually have harmful effects on human health. They are also disproportionately built near communities of colour and low-income. This is known as environmental racism.
Besides these methods of disposal, plastic waste is illegally sent offshore to developing countries or simply dumped
Illegal offshoring is another example of environmental racism. It increased especially after China’s ban on plastic trade. For example, the US is now sending its waste to South-Eastern countries. China was the biggest plastic recycler for many nations like The US and Australia but it had to deal with its own waste.
Because of weak policies plastic can be dumped openly or into oceans. This is extremely dangerous because it can leak into natural and human environments disrupting and damaging ecosystems. The litter can be transported through natural processes like wind, stormwater or through food chains between animals (and consequently into human environments).
There is a study estimating humans are ingesting microplastics (through water, air and common foods) equivalent to the size of a credit card every week (Wit & Bigaud 2019). Imagine eating a credit card every week.
In short, recycling is the best practice. If the plastic is not recycled, it’s safer to store it in landfill than littering because plastic litter can leak into our environments and cause a whole range of other issues.
Chapter 5
Conclusion: What does it all mean?
It is interesting to juxtapose the pre-life and after-life of plastics. In the pre-life, fossil fuels that formed millions of years ago are extracted, transported, refined, moulded and sold. It goes through these subsequent processes within just a few months.
Then it is usually used and discarded in a few hours, if not in a few days. In the after-life when it is discarded, it is practically "living dead among us" and can be on Earth breaking down into smaller particles for 10000 years.
So it seems like we use this unique and valuable material the wrong way. We consume it at unsustainable levels for not-so-necessary things. Then we mismanage the waste.
However, does it mean we have to eliminate plastic completely or demonise it?
No, as it is still useful in many other ways. But we should aim to change the way we think about plastic and be more aware of our practices.
We should reduce plastic where it is not essential and where it can be reduced.
Figure 1: The 7 Types of Plastic (Plastic for Change 2021)