Plastic - Economic Miracle and Chief Among the Causes of Environmental Pollution

There are many causes of environmental pollution.apply. Yes, today our lungs are being poisoned with
Most infamously, there are the sealed drums of toxiccoal, and we are planting the seeds of many causes
waste material produced as a byproduct of nuclearof environmental pollution. But tomorrow, we'll have
reactions. There are the smog and toxins that floatsomething better on our hands.
through the air, caused by burning industrialThe first step in that revolution was plastics. No
smokestacks and the overuse of petroleum-burninglonger was it necessary to harvest elephant ivory or
vehicles and other machines. There's slash-and-burnrubber tree plants in order to get materials that could
deforestation with the additional airborne toxins itbe used in industrial machines and consumer goods.
creates and the massive environmental changesNow synthetic polymers could be manipulated
caused by the death of innumerable species thatchemically in order to create a material that was at
called the forests their home. Yet among all of thesethe same time durable, flexible, and reusable: a
causes of environmental pollution, one developmentmaterial, in other words, like plastic. Following from
looms larger than any other. That development is thethe development of cellulose and Bakelite in the late
economic miracle of the twentieth century: thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
revolution in plastics.respectively, plastic began to slowly conquer the
Strangely enough, plastics were developed as aworld markets and to become the sine qua non of
solution to some of the other major causes ofindustrial technology. By the 1970s, the production of
environmental pollution in the nineteenth century.plastic had outmatched the production of steel
Animal and plant-based materials like ivory, rainforestworldwide. Surely the causes of environmental
wood, tortoiseshell, and rubber were recognized aspollution were trumped forever.
scarce and worthy of protection even in theBut plastic was too durable and not reusable enough.
nineteenth century, an epoch known above all else asThe non-biodegradable nature of plastic made it an
the time in which people believed in the "myth ofexcellent material for high-stress machines, but a
perpetual progress": the belief that mankind's destinyterrible material for preventing the causes of
was to dominate the creatures of the earth andenvironmental pollution--of which it quickly became
exploit them in order to build an ever-greater,one. Today, plastic debris fills 25% of landfills, and it'll
cleaner, and safer future. The fact that coal-burningcontinue to fill 25% of landfills for the foreseeable
smokestacks and river-ruining industrial developmentfuture. In trying to solve the causes of environmental
was the means by which this shining utopia was topollution, we've created our own worst
be reached never seemed to register with people--ornightmare--and the dependency of industry on plastic
if it did, it was viewed as at best a transitional phase,means that no end is in sight.
something that would in time cease altogether to