Of the numerous ways we humans have botched our stewardship of the planet, it’s fair to say that the most egregious is our failure to address the global warming crisis. The Greenhouse Effect will turn the Earth into another Venus, but — oh, well.
Another of our monumental disappointments, although not at such a hair-on-fire level, is our use, overuse, and misuse of plastics.
Plastic is, literally, both a blessing and a curse. It proved to be adaptable, useful, and cheap, so we embraced it without reservation or caution. Now we are drowning in it.
Let me start with a definition. A polymer is a strong, elastic material consisting of long chains of molecules. It is common in nature; the cell walls of plants are made of cellulose, a natural polymer.
In 1869, American inventor John Wesley Hyatt created the first man-made polymer. He did so while seeking a $10,000 prize offered by a manufacturer of billiard balls. To its credit, the company wanted to find an alternative to elephant ivory.
Specifically, Hyatt treated cotton fiber (cellulose) with camphor. The result was celluloid, a partially synthetic polymer that could be molded into various shapes before it hardened. The substance was, in other words, formative. Plastic.
Hyatt’s discovery was groundbreaking. It provided an abundant new material to use in place of wood, stone, metal, etc. Although cellulose was only partly synthetic, the idea was celebrated as a way to preserve natural resources.
The first fully synthetic plastic, Bakelite, was created in 1907 by Leo Baekeland, a Belgian chemist. Bakelite contained no natural molecules. It was durable, heat-resistant, easily moldable, and ideal for mass production. The plastics revolution was underway.
Worldwide, the chemical industry invested heavily in developing more and better types of plastic. By World War II, the US military had switched from glass and silk to acrylic and nylon.
The production of plastics in the US tripled. Plastic soon replaced steel in cars, paper in packaging, and wood in everything. Plastic was a miracle — cheap, safe, and sanitary.
But soon enough, reality intervened. Plastic doesn’t conveniently biodegrade and disappear as do most natural materials. Plastic just piles up.
As early as the 1960s, an alarming amount of plastic waste was polluting waterways and accumulating in landfills.
Although we humans have acknowledged the problem, we have not dealt with it even remotely well. That’s no surprise, because plastics are crucial and profitable to business, industry, and government.
Accordingly, other than rolling out feel-good efforts at recycling, we have done little to rethink the production of plastics or to mitigate the waste problem.
Some relevant statistics…
A few years ago, a study by several universities found that, by 2015, humans had generated 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic.
For perspective, 8.3 billion metric tons is equal to the weight of 822,000 Eiffel Towers, 80 million blue whales, or one billion elephants.
Of that 8.3 billion metric tons, 6.3 billion has been discarded as waste.
Greenpeace says we have recycled roughly five percent of our plastic waste. About 79 percent is sitting in landfills.
Every year, Americans discard 35 billion plastic bags and pieces of plastic packaging.
According to the EPA, we recycle a mere 10 percent of the plastic bags we use.
Every year, an additional eight million metric tons of plastic waste finds its way into the oceans.
Since 1988, scientists have been aware of several massive and growing garbage patches in the oceans of the world. For the most part, the patches are comprised of bits of microplastics, plus pieces of larger plastic items — pens, toothbrushes, plastic bags — that are slowly fragmenting into microplastics.
The largest of the patches, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, covers about 620,000 square miles. Some of the plastic floats on the surface in island-like clumps, but a far greater volume is suspended underwater, out of sight.
Why is the plastics crisis essentially in limbo and not being addressed intelligently? For the same reason the global warming crisis isn’t being solved: too many entities, primarily corporations and governments, profit from the status quo.
What to do? How should shrewd, enterprising, forward-thinkers — people with connections and resources — approach the problem of plastics?
For starters, they should take advantage of plastic’s pesky longevity. Find ways to use it to construct things that we want to last — highways, runways, sidewalks. Homes, schools, office buildings.
In addition, they should look for solutions that (a) make more sense than using plastics and (b) yield better profits.
In that regard, the British startup Pulpex may be onto something promising.
Recently, the UK alcoholic beverage company Diageo (Guinness, Johnnie Walter, Smirnoff) founded Pulpex, a “sustainable packaging” company that has developed a container made of wood pulp.
The Pulpex container is a bottle made of paper. As such, it is biodegradable and easily recyclable after use. Assuming the manufacturing costs are suitably low, that makes it a potential replacement for plastic and glass.
Pulpex pressure-forms wood pulp into bottles of the desired size and shape, then seals the interior with a food-grade coating. Reportedly, Pulpex bottles are made of renewably-sourced wood and can be any shape, size, or color.
Among the first commercial products to be rolled out in Pulpex containers are Diageo’s own Johnnie Walker Black Label, Heinz Ketchup, and Castrol Motor Oil.
The Pulpex model is a simple and smart idea — a positive step.
On the other hand, it doesn’t address the 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic waste our species already has discarded.
Which, for perspective, is equal to the weight of 661,500 Eiffel Towers, 60 million blue whales, or 750 million elephants.
Mr. Write's Page 