In 1957, Knerr & Medlin made the first hula hoop. Its cylindrical splendour and appealing bounciness made it a firm favourite. The iconic Lego block and Barbie doll were to follow before the end of the decade. Plastic moulded itself into the image of nearly industry, from fashion, to toys, artificial hearts and airplanes. There's even nylon in the American flag planted on the moon.
For close to seventy years, plastic has been one of the most used materials in the world. In 2017, we use it to stop bullets, to mimic haemoglobin in the blood, and to 3D print body parts. We haven't outgrown that need for innovation. But plastic is surely outgrowing us.
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In the first global analysis of plastic production and use, the true weight of the world's most flexible material has been brought to light. By 2015, humans had generated 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic. Of that, 6.3 billion is waste, with just nine per cent of it recycled. The majority, 79 per cent, is piled-up in landfills.
To put this staggering quantity in perspective, 8.3 billion metric tons is the same weight as 80 million blue whales, or 822,000 Eiffel Towers, or one billion elephants. The research was conducted by the University of Georgia, the University of California and others and is published in the journal Science Advances.
In the 1950s, global plastic production was at two million metric tons per year. Around 75 years later this figure has ballooned to over 400 million. "Most plastics don't biodegrade in any meaningful sense, so the plastic waste humans have generated could be with us for hundreds or even thousands of years," says Jenna Jambeck, study co-author and associate professor of engineering at the University of Georgia.
The main use of plastic in the age of convenience has been in packaging –cushioning for goods that's ultimately disposable. The damage is far-reaching. For one, fish eat plastic in the ocean, we eat the fish and it creeps into every corner of the ecosystem – we end up slowly consuming more plastic both literally and figuratively.
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"Our estimates underscore the need to think critically about the materials we use and our waste management practices," Jambeck says. Compared to other industrial materials, such as steel and concrete, plastic has longer repercussions for smaller return.
"Roughly half of all the steel we make goes into construction, so it will have decades of use – plastic is the opposite," says Roland Geyer, lead author of the paper and associate professor in UCSB's Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. "Half of all plastics become waste after four or fewer years of use. "Put simply, you can't manage what you don't measure, and so we think policy discussions will be more informed and fact based now that we have these numbers."
Before now, there has been no global measurement of plastic production. Scale has been assessed country by country, or when focused on ocean-based plastic. With this new measure, it is hoped that the scale of the problem will help create new sustainability strategies.
But plastic still grips our imagination. "There are people alive today who remember a world without plastics," Jambeck says. "But they have become so ubiquitous that you can't go anywhere without finding plastic waste in our environment, including our oceans."
A billion elephants worth of plastic is a dizzying amount. But engineers and environmentalists aren't vying for total recall – to stop using plastic overnight would be reckless, let alone impossible. Instead, we need to adjust our plastic production and usage.
"There are areas where plastics are indispensable, especially in products designed for durability," says co-author Kara Lavender Law, a research professor at SEA. "But I think we need to take a careful look at our expansive use of plastics and ask when the use of these materials does or does not make sense."
By 2050, if our plastic production continues unregulated, scientists estimate a conservative 12 billion tons of plastic waste will be stuck on our planet. What's not recycled will be incinerated or will keep on accumulating. Ask yourself this: how many plastic elephants is too many?
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
