How to solve the world's plastic problem | BBC Ideas — Transcript

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1. 0:00Plastic is incredible.
2. 0:02It helps send fresh food around the world,
3. 0:04keeps us warm (or cool), and dry,
4. 0:07and enables medicines like vaccines to be delivered safely at scale
5. 0:11to billions of people.
6. 0:13But it's also increasingly in our soil, our oceans
7. 0:16and the stomachs of birds, mammals and fish.
8. 0:20In fact, the amount of plastic on our planet now outweighs
9. 0:23all the land and sea creatures currently alive.
10. 0:27So, how can we sort out our problem with plastic?
11. 0:36These are sights we're all too familiar with -
12. 0:40plastic floating in the oceans
13. 0:42or piled up in bursting landfills.
14. 0:45And whilst our instinct might be to demonise the material itself,
15. 0:49arguably the main problem is how we use it.
16. 0:52But first, it's worth remembering
17. 0:54what a versatile and useful material plastic is,
18. 0:57making everything from car parts
19. 1:00to bulletproof vests and wind turbines.
20. 1:02It was first created in the 1860s,
21. 1:05with a noble intention to replace elephant ivory
22. 1:09used in billiard balls.
23. 1:10Plastic became popular with the military
24. 1:12during the Second World War,
25. 1:14but it only grew at scale commercially in the 1960s.
26. 1:18Since then, it's been produced in many different forms,
27. 1:21including polystyrene, acrylic,
28. 1:24nylon, polyester and vinyl,
29. 1:27and has been incorporated into almost every aspect of our lives.
30. 1:31Plastic is so cheap and easy to make,
31. 1:34our use of it has grown at a phenomenal rate,
32. 1:37and this has unintended consequences.
33. 1:40It's been found in the guts of creatures living deep in the ocean
34. 1:44and even in human placentas.
35. 1:46And because most plastic is based on oil,
36. 1:49its use contributes to climate change,
37. 1:52accounting for around 3.5% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
38. 1:57Some plastic can be recycled,
39. 2:00but globally only about 9% is.
40. 2:02While decent recycling exists in some countries,
41. 2:05in others there's just no real recycling infrastructure.
42. 2:09And when most plastic is recycled, its quality deteriorates.
43. 2:14And no matter how many ocean or river clean-ups we arrange,
44. 2:18our environment simply cannot cope with our love of single-use plastic.
45. 2:23In the UK alone, we throw away
46. 2:25over 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups a year.
47. 2:29Conventional plastic can take anywhere from 20 to 500 years
48. 2:33to decompose,
49. 2:35with the average supermarket bag needing around 20 years
50. 2:38and a plastic bottle around 450 years.
51. 2:41Biodegradable plastic -
52. 2:43made from plants rather than petrochemicals or fossil fuels -
53. 2:47isn't the simple answer either.
54. 2:49Bacteria degrades bioplastic much more rapidly
55. 2:52than conventional plastic,
56. 2:54but that releases both methane and carbon dioxide -
57. 2:58greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
58. 3:01It also breaks down into microplastics,
59. 3:04meaning it gets into our food systems via the soil and fish.
60. 3:09One way to address these problems
61. 3:11is to take a circular approach to plastic,
62. 3:14designing it to stay in use for as long as possible.
63. 3:17In the current model, we take raw materials,
64. 3:20make them into plastic products, likely only use them once
65. 3:24and then throw them away.
66. 3:25In the circular model, plastic would never become waste or pollution.
67. 3:29We could eliminate its unnecessary use,
68. 3:32such as excessive food packaging,
69. 3:34and ensure that all plastic products can be upcycled.
70. 3:38A coffee cup can be turned into a coat.
71. 3:40A toothbrush could help make a suitcase.
72. 3:43Improving the quality and design of plastic
73. 3:46so that we pull its polymers -
74. 3:48the long chains of molecules that make it up - apart
75. 3:51and put them back together in an endless loop
76. 3:53would mean that plastic would be made once
77. 3:56and then reused multiple times.
78. 3:58It could then be cleaned, processed and remoulded
79. 4:01to make different types of plastic
80. 4:03or a new product of the same quality.
81. 4:06This approach, which would help reduce both pollution
82. 4:10and greenhouse gas emissions, requires commitment and innovation.
83. 4:14But it is achievable.
84. 4:16A temple in Thailand turns plastic bottles into new robes for monks,
85. 4:21helping to process ten tonnes of plastic waste every month.
86. 4:24Returnable packaging schemes,
87. 4:26where consumers return reusable packaging in a shop
88. 4:29or a drop-off point, help to eliminate waste from deliveries.
89. 4:33A fleece jacket typically contains 95% recycled polyester fibre.
90. 4:39Let's face it, we're not going to completely get rid of plastic
91. 4:42from our lives, nor would we want to.
92. 4:45But with the equivalent of 2,000 rubbish trucks full of plastic
93. 4:50dumped into the world's oceans and rivers every single day,
94. 4:54we also can't leave future generations to clean up our mess.
95. 4:58Our attitude to plastics has to change.
96. 5:01We need to make better plastic,
97. 5:03treat plastic items as indispensable
98. 5:06and stop thinking that it can be used once and then thrown away -
99. 5:10because, let's be honest, the "away" in this scenario
100. 5:13doesn't really exist.