Plastic. It’s hard to imagine the modern world without it.
It’s in virtually every consumer product conceivable, from clothes to computers and cars and much else. It’s almost ubiquitous, yet it’s only been around for little more than a century. The Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite, the first fully synthetic plastic, in 1907. Bakelite and other plastics are a tribute to God-given abilities to invent useful stuff.
And yet, as with many new technologies, useful stuff can have entirely unforeseen consequences. The world now produces an estimated 335million tonnes of plastic a year, and we haven’t worked out how to get rid of it properly when we don’t need it anymore. You may remember seeing horrific images of ocean creatures entangled in plastic in the Blue Planet II series or pictures of rivers in Asia choked by plastic rubbish.
