Materials scientist Debbie Chacra writes about "peak plastic" — the moment at which our ability to make plastic (which is made from oil) begins to decline. As Debbie points out, our material world is made of plastic, and it's hard to imagine a post-plastics life.
Plastic is more than just water bottles and Tupperware. If you're indoors, look around. There's a good bet that much of what's in your field of view is made of plastic. Paint. Carpeting. Upholstery. The finish on a wood floor. Veneer on furniture. And that's before you go into your kitchen, or bathroom, and never mind a subway car or a hospital (disposable, sterile medical supplies, anyone?). Plastic is so ubiquitous that it's almost invisible…
There'll likely still be applications that really need petroplastic, so landfills will become goldmines. The characteristic drawback of plastic, its stubborn resistance to degradation ('this plastic bag will still be around in ten thousand years!') will become a virtue, as it sits unchanged in anaerobic landfills waiting for us to decide that it's worth excavating and recycling. And one day we'll do just that–there'll come a point when the easy, albeit expensive, way to get a particular combination of properties (formability, degradation resistance, sterilisability) will be to dig up post-consumer plastics and reuse them.
GUEST INFORMANT: Debbie Chachra
