The growth of plastics production in the past 65 years has substantially outpaced any material manufactured by humans. However, the same properties that make plastics so versatile – durability and resistance to degradation – make these materials difficult or impossible for nature to assimilate.
Without a well-designed strategy for treatment of end-of-life plastics, humans are conducting a singular uncontrolled experiment on a global scale, in which billions of metric tons of material will accumulate across all major terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems on the planet.
(Geyer et al., 2017)
Roland Geyer, Jenna R. Jambeck, Kara Lavender Law. Science Advances, 2017.
The growth of plastics production in the past 65 years has substantially outpaced any material manufactured by humans. However, the same properties that make plastics so versatile in innumerable applications – durability and resistance to degradation – make these materials difficult or impossible for nature to assimilate.
Without a well-designed and tailor-made management strategy for end-of-life plastics, we humans are conducting a singular uncontrolled experiment on a global scale, in which billions of metric tons of material will accumulate across all major terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems on the planet.”
Roland Geyer, Jenna R. Jambeck, Kara Lavender Law. Science Advances, 2017.
