Event 3: Jessica Irish Talk

            This Thursday I attended the talk from Jessica Irish. Her presentation paired very well with the lecture this week from Dr. Gimzewski. I was really interested in her discussion of the history and rise in popularity of plastics. The first synthetic plastic was developed in 1869 as an alternative to ivory (“History and Future of Plastics”). However, plastics really took off during World War II because natural resources needed to be preserved as manufacturing to assist the war effort increased, and in came plastics to meet those demands (“History and Future of Plastics”). After the war in the 1950s, plastics entered the consumer market and took off dramatically. In all sectors, plastics did better than the old materials, and the new wealthier middle class in the United States consumed them at rapid rates (“History and Future of Plastics”). Plastics were heavily marketed to Americans, as shown in the advertisement below.

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https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/06/the-imprudent-promise-of-plastics/

            This overconsumption of plastics has created disastrous pollution. Most plastics take 500 years or more to decompose. Therefore, all of the plastic that any American consumer has ever bought is still on the Earth. This problem is exemplified in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest of the five offshore plastics accumulation zones that is located halfway between Hawaii and California (“The Great Pacific Garbage Patch”). It is estimated to cover 1.6 million square kilometers or twice the size of Texas (“The Great Pacific Garbage Patch”). The problem continues to grow as each year between 1.15 and 2.41 million metric tons of plastic enter the ocean (“The Great Pacific Garbage Patch”). A picture of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is shown below.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnCbTTTi7ic

            Part of the problem with plastic pollution is that recycling in the United States is not effective. Although recycling bins are available in almost every house in America, only about 8% of the plastic thrown away actually gets recycled (Cho). In the US we think we are recycling but the plastic just ends up in the ocean and eventually in our bodies through microplastics (Carrington). These microplastics are the result of plastics breaking down into increasingly smaller particles that have been found in the human blood for the first time (Carrington). The true impact of these microplastics is unknown at this time, but in laboratory settings, they can damage human cells (Carrington). A picture of how small these microplastics can become is shown in relation to a finger in the image below.

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https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/help-for-a-world-drowning-in-microplastics

            Despite this worrisome problem, there are some projects seeking to address plastic pollution. One project is called The Ocean Cleanup that seeks to scale up new technologies to remove plastic from the ocean (“The Ocean Cleanup”). The project also focuses on rivers that drain into the ocean to remove the plastic before it reaches the vast ocean (“The Ocean Cleanup”). Additionally, recently scientists have developed a new compostable, plastic-like polymer (Sanders). With just heat and water these polymers have decomposed under normal compost conditions (Sanders). These polymers function just like regular plastics, but they can fully decompose in about a week (Sanders). These polymers would be revolutionary. A combination of new polymers and plastic removal projects are needed to fully combat this problem. As these new polymers are tested and scaled up, there needs to be an effort to educate people about the problem and reduce their consumption of traditional plastic products.

 

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My confirmation email for the event.

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Carrington, Damian. “Microplastics Found in Human Blood for First Time.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 24 Mar. 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/microplastics-found-in-human-blood-for-first-time.

Cho, Renee. “Recycling in the U.S. Is Broken. How Do We Fix It?” State of the Planet, 8 Dec. 2020, https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/03/13/fix-recycling-america/.

“The Great Pacific Garbage Patch • The Ocean Cleanup.” The Ocean Cleanup, 12 May 2022, https://theoceancleanup.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch/.

“History and Future of Plastics.” Science History Institute, 20 Nov. 2019, https://www.sciencehistory.org/the-history-and-future-of-plastics.

The Ocean Cleanup, 4 May 2022, https://theoceancleanup.com/.

Sanders, Robert. “New Process Makes 'Biodegradable' Plastics Truly Compostable.” Berkeley News, 21 Apr. 2021, https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/04/21/new-process-makes-biodegradable-plastics-truly-compostable/.