The third edition of our Plastic Free July comes with 4 new questions and answers about (micro)plastics that were sent to us by our community via social media and email.
Until 10th July we have been asking our community to send us questions about microplastics and plastic in general. And until end of July we will publish answers to 20 of the most interesting questions to raise awareness about plastic pollution, educate on ways to fight it and even provide some insight into how plastic transformed the world as we know it, covering the good and the bad aspects of plastic.
You are right. But the fact is that we need to start somewhere and getting rid of plastic straws is simply a (small) step in the right direction. It might be seen as an entry point for businesses and individuals to start thinking about plastic pollution on a larger scale.
One plastic straw won’t save the environment and neither will 100 million. But when it comes to thinking about plastic pollution, plastic straws are actually a very good first point of contact with the issue. Taking that first step (not using a plastic straw) can lead to an attitude change and leads to more sustainable choices we make as consumers. And when enough people make a change in their sustainable behavior, things start to add up: companies rethink their business models (in a mor esustainable way hopefully) and politics starts to pay attention.
Bottom line: a single banned plastic straw won’t save the environment. But it just might spark a change in our thinking that will lead to saving the environment.
We need to go a step back to the invention of the first synthetic polymer - celluloid. John Wesley Hyatt invented it in 1869 by taking part in a New York firm’s offer of $10,000 for anyone who could provide a substitute for ivory.
Natural ivory was scarce at the time due to popularity of billiards. As ivory was a controversial material (obtained by slaughter of elephants), Hyatt’s discovery of a plastic made from treating cellulose derived from cotton fiber with camphor, was a revolution as it could be crafted into a variety of shapes and made to imitate natural substances like tortoiseshell, horn, linen, and ivory. This was the first time that human manufacturing was not limited by limits of nature. Humans could actually create new materials that were cheap and super useful.
Plastic similar to the one we know today was invented in 1907 by Leo Baekeland.
Bakelite was the first fully synthetic plastic, which means that it contained no molecules that would be otherwise found in nature. It was developed as a substitute for shellac, which is a natural electric insulator. Bakelite was a great insulator and also durable, heat resistant and suitable for mass production. At the time, it was marketed as “the material of a thousand uses”, as it could be shaped into practically anything.
Hyatt and Baekeland were pioneers in the field, but both developed the material for a specific use. New research programs later on went the other way around – developing new plastic materials and finding a use for them later.
Plastic is a strange material. Most of plastic products are only used for a few moments (think plastic wraps, beverage cups or dental floss), but the material itself lasts practically forever (at least when we put it into perspective compared to a human life).
Plastic doesn’t go away anytime soon. Instead it breaks down into smaller and smaller microplastic pieces, smaller than five milimeters (and even much smaller, we call those nanoplastics). Really small pieces, those smaller than a milimeter in diameter, act like magnets for other pollutants. And some microplastics are so small that zooplankton in the oceans mistakes these pieces for food. And you know how the food chain works: small organisms are swallowed by larger ones, eventually microplastics accumulate in fish and other animals that are food for humans. So even if we don’t consume (micro)plastics directly, we eat food that is full of microplastics.
As for durability – the most durable plastic items can take up to 450 years to degrade (plastic bottles, disposable diapers to name a couple). Other common plastic objects like straws can take up to 200 years to degrade. And foam plastic cups can take 50 years.
It’s worth noting that research has shown that a big portion of microplastics actually sink to the bottom of the ocean, where plastic can last up to thousand of years, as there is no sunlight, less oxidation and other drivers that speed up plastic degradation.
Microplastics are small plastic pieces that are less than 5mm long. They have now been found practically everywhere on the planet, from the deepest oceans (microplastics were found in the Marianna Trench) to the highest peaks (OMG Everest base camp).
Microplastics come from a variety of sources. Larger plastic debris, for instance, degrades into smaller and smaller pieces. And then there are intentionally produced microplastics, like microbeads that are added as exfoliants to health and beauty products (yes, even toothpaste). The main problem of microplastics is that they can pass water filtration systems and end up in the environment. The effect of microplastic pollution is already clearly visible, as microplastics pass through the food chain into our bodies. Microplastics have already been found in our blood, lungs, placentas, reproductive organs and semen, and have even breached the blood-brain barrier. Because these tiny particles can bind toxins, they affect our health.
While the mentioned microplastics are quite obvious (we can see plastic debris deteriorating in landfills or on the beach and microbeads are not a secret in the beauty and health industry), there are also microplastics that are not as obvious. Click the link in our BIO to learn more about microplastics that come from laundry (yes, you read that right).
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