And how did we get to this point? Believe it or not, it started with coming up with a substitute for #ivory...

The plastic paradox: How plastics went from elephant saviors to #EcoVillains
Do the benefits of plastics outweigh the costs?

by Ross Pomeroy
January 23, 2024

"It was 1869, and something needed to be done.

"With the price of ivory skyrocketing, billiard ball manufacturers were scrambling for an alternative. The prized material derived from elephant tusks was being used to craft such things as knife handles, piano keys, dice, dominoes, chessmen, and yes, billiard balls. Now, with #elephants growing scarce from overhunting, the wonder material was becoming difficult to procure and unreasonably expensive. After all, one tusk would yield just four or five balls. Leading pool table manufacturer Phelan and Collender offered $10,000 ($225,000 today) to any inventor who could discover a replacement for ivory.

"Albany inventor John Wesley Hyatt answered the call, molding together camphor, nitrocellulose, and alcohol under extreme pressure. His concoction, called celluloid, was one of the first synthetic plastics. While Hyatt’s creation proved an unwieldy material for billiard balls — insufficiently durable and mildly explosive when struck — it inspired others to formulate something better. A few decades later, American chemist Leo Baekeland came up with the petroleum-derived Bakelite. It became the first commercially successful synthetic plastic, and very likely saved elephants from #extinction."

[The article goes on to mention how #plastics and #PFAS are interconnected...]

"According to the authors of the report, plastic additives may be the most pernicious. These substances augment plastics to make them more useful to consumers: stronger, more pliable, less #flammable, non-stick, etc. However, large observational studies and research in lab animals indicate they are harming human health.

"The substances could be increasing cancer rates, reducing birth weights, inhibiting antibody responses to vaccines, raising blood pressure, and contributing to infertility. These compounds include polybrominated diphenyl ethers (#PBDE), phthalates, bisphenol A (#BPA), and per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (#PFAS).

"Philip J. Landrigan, a professor, pediatrician, and Director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College, is the lead author of the Minderoo-Monaco Commission report. He spoke with Big Think about the potential harms of plastic additives.

"Landrigan was a pediatrician during the 1970s, when lead in gasoline, paints, and toys was secretly poisoning children. He says chemicals leaching from plastics constitute a similar threat: As they’re not chemically bound to the plastic matrix, they can easily escape into the environment. #PBDEs, added as #FlameRetardants in furniture and other products, have been found in house dust and are neurotoxic, he says.

“The thousands of chemicals in plastics — #monomers, additives, processing agents, and non-intentionally added substances — include amongst their number known human #carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, #neurotoxicants, and persistent organic #pollutants,' Landrigan and his fellow authors wrote in the report.

"Given these negative effects, it may seem as if plastic is a fire-breathing dragon. While it began as an ally, it has now turned against us. If we don’t get the dragon back under control, it could spell our downfall.

"To respond to threats from plastics, the experts on the Minderoo-Monaco Commission called for a #GlobalPlasticsTreaty comparable to the Paris Climate Agreement to combat climate change. As part of the treaty, they insist that a 'cap on global plastic production with targets, timetables, and national contributions' is needed. Global plastic use is estimated to nearly triple by 2060."

Read more:
https://bigthink.com/the-present/plastics-costs-benefits-paradox/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

#Crapitalism #BanPlastics
#WaterIsLife #OceansAreLife #PlasticRain

#PlasticRain Is the New #AcidRain

Plastic rain could prove to be a more insidious problem than acid rain.

by Matt Simon
June 12, 2020

"Hoof it through the national parks of the western United States—Joshua Tree, the #GrandCanyon, Bryce Canyon—and breathe deep the pristine air. These are unspoiled lands, collectively a great American conservation story. Yet an invisible menace is actually blowing through the air and falling via raindrops: #Microplastic particles, tiny chunks (by definition, less than 5 millimeters long) of fragmented plastic bottles and microfibers that fray from clothes, all #pollutants that get caught up in Earth’s atmospheric systems and deposited in the #wilderness.

"Writing in the journal Science, researchers report a startling discovery: After collecting #rainwater and air samples for 14 months, they calculated that over 1,000 metric tons of microplastic particles fall into 11 protected areas in the western US each year. That’s the equivalent of over 120 million plastic water bottles.

"'We just did that for the area of protected areas in the West, which is only 6 percent of the total US area,' says lead author Janice Brahney, an environmental scientist at Utah State University. 'The number was just so large, it's shocking.'

"It further confirms an increasingly hellish scenario: Microplastics are blowing all over the world, landing in supposedly pure habitats, like the #Arctic and the remote #FrenchPyrenees. They’re flowing into the #oceans via #wastewater and tainting #deepsea #ecosystems, and they’re even ejecting out of the water and blowing onto land in sea breezes. And now in the American West, and presumably across the rest of the world given that these are fundamental atmospheric processes, they are falling in the form of plastic rain—the new acid rain.

"Plastic rain could prove to be a more insidious problem than acid rain, which is a consequence of #SulfurDioxide and #NitrogenOxide emissions. By deploying #scrubbers in power plants to control the former, and catalytic converters in cars to control the latter, the US and other countries have over the last several decades cut down on the #acidification problem. But microplastic has already corrupted even the most #RemoteEnvironments, and there’s no way to scrub water or land or air of the particles—the stuff is absolutely everywhere, and it’s not like there’s a plastic magnet we can drag through the oceans. What makes plastic so useful—its hardiness—is what also makes it an alarming pollutant: Plastic never really goes away, instead breaking into ever smaller bits that infiltrate ever smaller corners of the planet. Even worse, plastic waste is expected to skyrocket from 260 million tons a year to 460 million tons by 2030, according to the consultancy McKinsey. More people joining the middle class in #EconomicallyDeveloping countries means more #consumerism and more #PlasticPackaging. "

Read more:
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/plastic-rain-is-the-new-acid-rain?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

#Crapitalism #BanPlastics #WaterIsLife #OceansAreLife