I really like plastic.  I like zip-seal plastic bags, my nylon clothing, my bike helmet, my zip ties, my cling film, my leftover containers, my nalgene bottle, my cellphone, and the keyboard I’m using to type this message.  I like all the forms it takes: nylon, polystyrene, polypropolene, PVC, ABS, polyester, polycarbonate, and others I can’t think of.  There are days when I notice that all of my clothing, including my shoes and underwear, are made from the synthetic materials we call plastic.  Sometimes I do it on purpose.  I’m surrounded by the stuff, and I love it.

Polyvinyl chloride

Unfortunately, this seems to be growing into a rather serious problem for humanity.  Researchers have learned recently that many of the catalysts used to form the stuff from raw materials (called plasticizers) are endocrine disruptors.  This means they mimic hormones (like estrogen)  in humans and animals, leading to strange developmental problems, such as an increase in the number of intersex fish and amphibians.  The most commonly known chemical in this class is BPA, which is used to create polycarbonate.  Another endocrine disruptor is styrene trimer, which is used to create polystyrene.

syndiotactic polypropylene

Not only are the chemicals used to create plastic a problem, the discarded plastic itself is a major issue we’re only beginning to come to grips with.  The Scripps Institute recently sent an expedition, called SEAPLEX, to the North Pacific Gyre, also known as the Pacific Garbage Patch.  This is a raft of marine litter, consisting mostly of suspended plastic particles, roughly the size of Texas.  Not only did they find the high concentration of plastic they expected once they reached the garbage patch, but every single water sample they took after leaving San Francisco contained suspended plastic.  Marine life, from microscopic organisms, to large creatures are ingesting these plastic particles.

Styrene

Bisphenol A

Plastic has another catch: its difficult to recycle.  In principle, its actually quite easy to recycle plastic into new products.  However, unlike glass, iron, or aluminum, which can be processed inexpensively from relatively low-quality, dirty source material, plastic needs to be both clean and sorted by type.  Generally speaking, if the plastic is too dirty, or the plastic is contaminated with other types of plastic, the resulting recycled material is weak, substandard stuff.  Not the kind of thing you’d expect to hold in the enormous pressure of 2 liters of carbonated beverage.

All is not lost, but we have to simultaneously reduce our production of this stuff, and find a way to clean up and reuse the stuff we’ve already created.  There are some new techniques that give me hope we can actually treat the piles of plastic we’re surrounded by as a resource.  Ecosheet is an interesting technology developed in the UK.  This is a kind of plastic “plywood” that can be made from mixed plastic.  Its strong, waterproof, and less expensive than the traditional wood-based plywood, and can be made from unsorted, mixed up plastic.  Better yet, it can be recycled into, you guessed it, more ecosheet.  I also just read today about a new process for breaking plastic down into its component hydrocarbons to make an inexpensive oil-like fuel.

In my fantasy future we’ll develop robotic ships fueled purely by floating plastic trash.  These ships will rove the oceans, scooping up the garbage humans so thoughtlessly tossed away years earlier.  The ships will process enough plastic into fuel to power themselves, plus fill their tanks with plastic-based fuel to sell once they get to port.  Along the way the ships collect scientific data to improve our understanding of the oceans.  Once their fuel tanks are full, they return to port, sell the fuel, and head back out to sea to clean up after the plastic revolution we’re still coming to terms with.