When synthetic plastic was first invented by Alexander Parks in 1862, he probably had no idea that in a year scientists would be scouring the ocean and observing its toxic effects on marine life. Given how much change a century can make in the lifestyle of a global society, you would be forgiven as a man of the 20th century to think that plastic consumption reduce drastically in the upcoming decades, given its dangers had already started to show- but unfortunately, plastics had too many advantages to just abandon them into a ditch- cheapness, robustness and light weight being the holy trinity for mass production, and meeting the needs of an exponentially increasing population.
It wouldn’t be fair to just paint plastics as “bad” without understanding why it came to be that way- if they were easily degradable, didn’t pollute everything it touched, we’d be promoting them in every possible way we can. We have to remember that despite the massive awareness we currently have about the ill-effects of plastic, our water bottles, phone cases, switches, clothing, shoes, stationery and packaging are all plastic, because their practicability makes it pretty much an indispensable part of daily life.
While it would be a Utopian dream to imagine a world where we have very minimal necessity and use of plastic, it would be impractical to expect the world to go back to glass milk bottles and laced, button-less shirts. But all hope is not lost- the bring-your-own-bag culture has seen a resurgence of cloth and paper bags, plant-based plastics are increasingly being incorporated into large-scale production, and single use plastic disposables are rapidly being replaced by eco-bagasse based products. While these alternatives do come with their own shortfalls, mostly in terms of cost and technological know-how, they are still pretty fillable gaps if invested properly, and necessary to prevent impending critical ecological crises that might result otherwise.
While we can bask in the rays of sunshine that plastic alternatives can bring us, we must remember that all the plastic in the world that was ever synthesized by man still exists today- in microscopic fragments or in whole, and neither is a better state than the other. Tackling the plastic problem requires efforts in multiple approaches- devising ways to deal with existing plastic, reducing production of new plastic, exploring more sustainable options, and actively being conscientious of our general consumption.
Like most technologies, plastic alternatives aren’t completely efficient. Recycling is an energy intensive process, and plant-based alternatives require a large amount of fertile land resources to mass-produce. While we do know with absolute clarity that we have to take a route that is “not plastic”, there is no clear consensus on what an optimal alternative route looks like. Awareness has done a fair share of its job by drawing attention to the problem, but we still need a good deal of interdisciplinary research to tackle this problem in a way that causes more harm than good- not just to us, but to the people we leave behind after we have done our time here.
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