Trash Island Citizens

Plastics seem like the perfect material. They are durable, malleable, strong, perfect insulators, and resistant to water, to corrosion, and to most chemicals. With this list of properties, no wonder humanity has tinkered with its naturally occurring examples for the better part of a millenia. Already in the Middle Ages, manufacturers across Europe used plasticized cow horns as a translucent material for windows, and, in the 1600s, some Mesoamerican civilizations started to use rubber for toys, bands and figurines. And the use of shellac was even recorded in ancient Indian texts.

However, it won’t be until the middle of 19th century when plastics start to be considered as a viable material for industrial production. That realization came, as it happened too many times to count throughout the History of Science, by accident. In 1839, a German physicist named Eduard Simon was working at his apothecary in Berlin on the process of distillation into styrol of a naturally occurring resin called storax. But he happened to leave a can open. When he returned to his experiment a few days later, he noticed that the styrol had been oxidized into a kind of jelly. And thus, polystyrene, one of the most widely used plastics in history, had been discovered. Today, it is used in DVD and CD cases, lids, bottles, caps, or disposable cutlery. In 1856, Polystyrene was followed by Parkesine, king of firsts in plastics: it was the first of their celluloid branch, considered the first truly man made plastic, and the first one that went into industrial production. At any rate, all of these were instances developed on the basis of naturally occurring resins and plastic-like materials.

Humanity had to wait until 1907 to see its first completely synthetic plastic, entirely made out of molecules not found in nature. That year, in his New York lab, scientist Leo Bakefield put a mix of formaldehyde and phenol through a condensation reaction. He called the result “bakelite”, and it was revolutionary. Its non-conductive and heat-resistant properties made it the perfect material to use in everything from radio and telephone receptors to kitchenware, firearms and even jewelry. But it was also revolutionary in another way: it proved that plastics could be produced cheaply and easily, which sparked a downpour of money into research on them.

In fact, just 21 years later, the giant american manufacturer DuPont decided to pivot the main goal of their Experimental Station in Delaware, created in 1903, towards plastics. In 1928, they hired chemist Wallace Carothers to lead it, and, over the next decades, the Station will become instrumental in the development of such ubiquitous plastics as nylon, lycra, neoprene, teflon, plexiglas or PET plastic. 

Be that as it may, until the 1970s, none of the plastics produced by DuPont -or any other company, for that matter- was manufactured with the three Rs -reduce, reuse, recycle- in mind. For instance, in 1973, the DuPont scientist Nathaniel Wyeth created the modern plastic bottle out of PET plastics. It was an instant success, with beverage manufacturing giants such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Evian or Nestlé adopting the concept on a large scale. Nonetheless, the problem became obvious quite soon too: after their use, plastic bottles became non-degradable waste. And, given the unfathomable amount of bottles produced per year, that waste was quickly becoming a huge issue. So, in 1977, just four years later after its invention, a process for their recycling was invented.

As the amount of plastic bags used per year reaches 500 billion and as it is accessible in almost every supermarket around the world, it might have an even graver impact on pollution. In 1965 Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin designed a simple, strong bag with a high load-carrying capacity. It was patented worldwide by the Swedish packaging company Celloplast and its aim was to function as an alternative to paper bags, which were considered bad for the environment because they resulted in forests being chopped down. They were significantly stronger than paper bags, which meant – in theory – they could be used over and over again. Seven decades later, the burden to deal with plastic bags has become too heavy and numerous countries have decided to ban plastic bags. The first to do so was Bangladesh in 2002 after it was found the bags played a key role in clogging drainage systems during disastrous flooding, and thankfully several countries have followed in Bangladesh’s footsteps.

Collaborative artist duo Pakui Hardware elaborates on their decision to use plastics in their art.

Is there no turning back from co-existing amongst the humongous trash isles floating around in our oceans? Let’s hear what Indrė Žvaigždinienė, an associate Professor at the Vilnius University Faculty of Law has to say.

Why have plastics irreversibly altered the face of our planet? Andrej Spiridonov, Professor at the Faculty of Geosciences at Vilnius University has the answer.