Humans produce 420 million tons of plastic annually, and as much as 14 million tons of plastic enter the ocean. However, plastics are crucial for our food packaging and physicians choose plastic for their gloves, sample vials, IV bags and thermometer covers because it helps prevent cross-contamination. Plastic often replaces metal on vehicle bodies to make them more fuel efficient and safer in accidents.
The physical features that make plastic useful also make it difficult to recycle and hard to replace in our manufacturing chain. And we dispose of plastics in unsustainable ways — 91 percent of the material isn’t recycled. To help reduce plastic waste, scientists and inventors are creating novel uses for plastics that would otherwise end up in the trash, or alternatives to the most wasteful plastic products we use today.
More than 27 million tons of polystyrene are manufactured every year. Our polystyrene takeout containers, plastic spoons and packing peanuts are commonly thrown away after a single use. But instead of heading to the trash, this plastic could have a useful second life, or could be avoided altogether, thanks to two innovative research projects under way now:
“The question was never really asked about what do we do with [plastics] after we’ve finished with them,” said John Williams, a chemist and business director of Aquapak, a biodegradable plastic manufacturer. For example, recycling plants can’t process paper coffee cups, which are lined with a thin layer of plastic for insulation and water resistance, causing an estimated 600 billion cups to be thrown away every year.
Williams said the plastic problem stems from our linear economies, wherein the material loses its value after use and is discarded at the end of its life cycle, instead of being repurposed.
Rather than tapping into oil resources to produce a steady stream of new and unnecessary plastic items, Williams said plastic products should be more purposefully produced and salvaged after use, even if it incurs additional costs to do so.
While this position seems to run contrary to capitalism, it is important to remember that plastic pollution comes with a social and environmental cost — to the tune of $139 billion a year, according to The Economist.
Damages to our health and the environment account for a third of this tab because of plastic-related pollution in air, water and land. So even though a shift to a sustainable economy — where more waste products are reused — might raise prices for manufacturers and consumers in the short-term, it could reduce environmental and health costs overall.
Read the full story at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/what-if-we-could-put-our-plastic-trash-to-good-use.