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Plastic Fantastic

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Professor Mark Miodownik explores our love/hate relationship with plastic.

Mark Miodownik explores our love/hate relationship with plastic, why we have ended up with oceans of waste blighting the environment and what science and society can do about it.

Plastic Fantastic: Things Start to Go Stale

Things Start to Go Stale

22/05/2018

BBC Radio 4 - Plastic Fantastic, Things Start to Go Stale

Materials scientist Mark Miodownik explores our love-hate relationship with plastic.

Plastics are fantastically versatile materials that have changed our lives. It is what we do with them, when we no longer want them, that has resulted in the global plastic crisis.

Plastic waste has been a global crisis waiting to happen. To date it's estimated that around 8.3 billion tonnes of waste plastic exists. That's 25 Empire State Buildings or 1 billion elephants. Incredibly around half of this has been generated in just the last 14 years, despite mass production having begun in the 1950s. Events such as China's recent refusal to take any more "foreign rubbish" and Sir David Attenborough's graphic portrayal of the devastation that plastic waste is causing in our oceans, has prompted political and media discussion like never before. We are at a critical moment where, if we're to turn the tide on plastic pollution, it will require science and society to come together to create real change. But it won't be easy. One major area that needs an overhaul is recycling. In the UK only 14% of plastic collected is recycled. We, and the rest of Europe tend to burn our waste for energy, and plastic has a calorific value similar to that of coal. But proponents of the circular economy say we should never consider plastic as waste at all and we should think of it as 'Buried Sunshine' - a resource that needs conserving - by reusing and recycling again and again.

Picture: Rubbish on beach, Credit: Paul F Donald.

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