Lets look back ...

"Parkesine", the first man-made plastic discovered by Alexander Parkes entered human civilization in 1862, as a substitute for ivory used in billiard balls! And it was not until John Wesley Hyatt discovered its improvised version commonly called celluloid.

Beginning of modern plastics ...

In 1909, a Belgian chemist Dr. Leo Hendrik Baekeland discovered "Bakelite", which heralded the era of synthetic plastic. From 1950 onward, the plastic industry evolved and flourished with the discovery of new polymer types and their new found applications.

Where we are now?

A study showed that since 1950 to 2015, a staggering 8300 million metric tons (Mt) of plastic has been produced, generating 6300 Mt of waste, out of which only ~9.5% (600 Mt) is recycled and almost 4900 Mt is accumulating in our environment, which is 82 times the total mass of humans (60 Mt) on the planet!! Why because, depending on the polymer type, size etc, it takes several 100's to 1000's of years for the plastic to degrade naturally.

How does it matter?

Our oceans have 75 to 199 Mt of plastic debris, each year around 9 to 14 Mt of it gets added! Nearly 17% of critically endangered marine species affected by plastic are listed under IUCN red listed of threatened species. Almost 344 and 233 marine species gets affected by either entanglement or ingestion of by plastic waste, respectively, leading to serious injury or death. It doesn't stop here... While larger plastic litter impacts soil fertility, fragmented particles often called "microplastic" or "nanoplastic" can enter food chain causing growth reduction, cytotoxicity to terrestrial creatures including Humans.

Plastic in NEWS!

"Bottle-fed babies swallow millions of microplastics a day, study finds" 

- 2020, The guardian

"Microplastics found in lung tissue from live human beings for the first time"

    -2022, Phys.org

"Microplastics found to be harmful to human cells"

-2021, Independent