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The plastic we all know is a synthetic material that is derived primarily from fossil fuels and is easily mouldable into any shape or texture.
There is no denying that plastic is the cornerstone of our modern society. Almost everything you see, and touch is from plastic or contains plastic components. Plastic has allowed us to get this far technologically, and modern life would not exist without it. That is an undeniable fact.
However, the convenience of plastic was not obvious to the regular consumer and the adoption of its usage in everyday life was not a natural and gradual process. We did not adopt plastic willingly. Prior to the explosion of plastic production, we had reuse systems in place. Think about the milkman that came in the morning, picked up empty bottles and replaced them with bottles full of fresh milk. When you went to the store to buy beer or a juice you would take empty bottles as mandatory replacement. When taking out the trash you would take it out with the trash bin, empty it and rinse the bin out before returning it to its place to collect trash instead of using plastic trash bags.
But following the Second World War, the convenience of plastic was pushed on the regular consumer. There were ads about housewives not needing to spend time washing up if they used plastic plates and cutlery. They just had to throw them away at the end of the meal. Don’t worry about taking bottles back once you’re done, just throw them in the trash. Slowly, a single use, throwaway culture built on ease and convenience was born.
Today, we cannot escape plastic. It is everywhere around us, interwoven with natural materials, as components in objects you wouldn’t even consider. We use it in all domains imaginable. And for good reason. Plastic is great!
But our relationship with plastic is deeply flawed because we were not given the whole story. As technology improves and new tools become available, we are just now starting to understand the true and long-lasting impact of the vast quantities of plastic that were produced. And it is terrifying.
If the advertisements pushing plastic on consumers would have also mentioned how 20-30 years down the road their children and grandchildren will be eating, drinking and inhaling small plastic particles and toxic additives daily, do you think they would have welcomed plastic into every facet of their lives? Probably not, but they were not told.
The origin of the word plastic comes from the Greek term “plastikos” and is something that can be easily shaped or moulded. The modern usage of the word plastic refers to a large family of materials called polymers. While all plastics are polymers, not all polymers are plastic. Some examples of natural polymers are DNA, silk, natural rubber. The plastic we all know from our daily lives is synthetic plastic.
Today, over 98% of synthetic plastic is made from chemicals derived from the fossil fuel industry, and it is created by processing crude oil, natural gas or coal and then mixing it with different additives. These additives are incorporated to customize the material’s performance, processing or flexibility but many of these additives are known to be bad for our health and the ecosystem.
At its root, plastics are primarily hydrocarbon chains (they are made mainly of Carbon and Hydrogen molecules).
There are multiple ways to categorize plastics, but one way is by how it reacts to heat:
Thermoplastics:
Thermosets:
We love plastic because it is strong, yet mouldable in whatever shape we need it to take, from soft fabric to strong, sturdy pieces like your steering wheel or garden furniture. Let’s not forget that it has these miraculous properties while also being extremely cheap.
The problem with plastic is that, because of the strong synthetic chemical bonds, it is resistant to biodegradation and persists in the environment for decades and even centuries. What this means is that plastic does not degrade but instead breaks down into smaller particles. Throughout this process, as it fragments into ever smaller pieces it releases toxic chemicals. This process is called leaching. Both the additives used in the production process leach into the environment as well as new toxins that were not involved at all in the production. This occurs when the existing substances interact with substances available in the environment. Many of these chemicals bioaccumulate (remain in our bodies, accumulating over time) and are known endocrine disruptors and carcinogens. Endocrine disruptors are natural or synthetic chemicals that interfere with the body’s endocrine system by mimicking, blocking, or altering hormones, leading to adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune effects.
Currently plastic waste can be classified by size into:
Macroplastic, or plastic litter, mainly consists of disposable plastic waste because of the short life cycle and high production rates. This includes food packaging, bottles and their lids, plastic bags, cigarette butts.
When large pieces of plastic float through oceans, they can transport species across continents, posing risks to native species and ecosystems. The large plastic items could cause suffocation and entanglement and disrupt the digestion in fish, birds, and mammals. And the accumulation of discarded fishing gear on coastal regions causes coral damage. This type of pollution leads to the deaths of millions of animals yearly.
Discarded plastic can also clog waterways and lead to flooding during heavy rains. Because water remains stuck on plastic and mosquitos don’t need much to breed, it also acts as a vector for mosquito-borne diseases as well as algal bloom disease.
Organisms also quickly colonize a plastic particle: microbes like viruses and bacteria, many of them human pathogens, grow alongside algae and even tiny larvae of animals. It’s an ecosystem so rich and so distinctive, scientists have dubbed it the plastisphere. This is a concern because it provides the opportunity, through close cohabitation, of gene transfers, increasing risks like antibiotic resistance.
But the biggest danger posed by plastic litter is its role as a precursor to microplastics and then nanoplastics.
At this stage the particles are so small that they disperse easily in the environment and become harder to see with the naked eye. Microplastic particles can be found everywhere. They get washed away by rainwater, lifted in the air and transported with the air currents thousands of kilometres away from their initial source.
While they no longer cause entanglement of wildlife, they are easily ingested and spread throughout the food chain. Once eaten microplastic does not stay in the body, but it is pooped out, free to get picked up by another animal.
The plastisphere that was on the particle gets ingested too and as an extra contaminant, the leaching of chemicals continues to occur throughout this process.
When it comes to human health, while studies on their effects are limited, microplastic was found all throughout our body, being identified in the plaque of heart attack victims, the ovaries of women fighting infertility, the placentas that nurture our unborn babies and babies’ first ever feces, meconium. Microplastic might also contribute to different cancer diagnoses.
In soil, microplastic changes the structure of soil, decreasing its density, altering the way it holds water, how it erodes and how microbial communities form. This may have an impact on crops. Microplastic was also found to damage insects’ digestive system, making them more prone to viral infections.
Nanoplastic particles do all the things that microplastic does but is smaller, which means that it can get through the blood-brain barrier and get into our cells and the pulp of the fruit and vegetables we eat.
Yes, nanoplastic was found in the human brain, where it continues to leach toxins and accumulate in our most sensitive and important organ.
Nanoplastic is everywhere in abundance. Recent research confirmed that the most abundant form of plastic in the Atlantic Ocean is nanoplastics, which are smaller than a micrometer. Researchers arrived at a shocking first estimate of 27 million tons of nanoplastics floating in the North Atlantic by extrapolating results from different locations.
Prior to the invention of synthetic plastic, humans used natural substances such as amber, ivory, horns, tortoiseshells because these can also be heated and shaped. We used them to create billiard balls, jewellery, piano keys, combs.
When plastic first arose, it was viewed as a saviour for many animals that were close to extinction due to increasing industrial needs. Early innovation was driven by the search for an ivory substitute for billiard balls.
The first plastic was invented in 1855 by Alexander Parkes in Birmingham. He called this material Parkesine and was the first celluloid as a bulk material for forming objects. His patent was taken over by John Wesley Hyatt in the 1860s and successfully produced the first billiard balls that would be a suitable replacement for the original, ivory balls.
In 1907 Bakelite was created by Dr. Leo Baekeland and was the first entirely synthetic commercial plastic. Because it was smooth, light, durable, electrically nonconductive, heat-resistant and cheap to manufacture, Bakelite became a staple for all sorts of items, from jewellery to phones, toys, kitchenware and firearms. During World War I Bakelite was used widely, particularly in electrical systems. During WW II it was also used in uniform buttons, goggles, even coins when other materials were lacking.
Large scale plastic production began in the 1940s, driven by the material needs during World War II. Following the post-war production overload, the manufacturers realized that the easiest way to increase profits was to promote the idea of using plastic once and throwing it away, completely ignoring the near-indestructible nature of that plastic. Today, roughly 40% of plastic production is dedicated to single-use items, mainly packaging.
The rise of plastic is closely linked to the birth of the modern consumer. In 1955 Life magazine ran the headline “Throwaway Living” below a photograph showing a family flinging plates, cups, and cutlery into the air. They stated that cleaning it all would take about 40 hours, but housewives don’t need to bother because it is all meant to be thrown away. Plastic was seen as a wonder product that offered never seen convenience at an affordable price.
All this throwaway culture backfired when consumers started throwing their trash wherever they pleased. In the 1960s plastic producers and the packaging industry, afraid of potential legal regulations, invented the term “litterbug” and placed the responsibility on the consumer. The Make America Beautiful campaign is how it all began and is a textbook case of greenwashing.
Public pressure started to increase in the 1970s with the first Earth Day and the birth of the Environmental Movement. This is when recycling entered the stage. Even to this day, plastic producers claim that improvements in the recycling system are all we need to solve the plastic waste crisis.
In 1971 Kenneth L. Smith and Edward J. Carpenter were in the Sargasso Sea studying the Sargassum community (a brown algae that provides shelter and food for multiple other species) when they noticed that their nets were bringing in a multitude of plastic pieces far away from land. They published a paper about their findings in 1972, warning that the increase in plastic production combined with the improper waste-disposal practices will lead to the increase of these particles. Although the word “microplastic” was not yet part of the lexicon, that is exactly what they found.
In 1990 Britain’s largest chemicals company, ICI, launched the first biodegradable plastic made from sweet potatoes, peas and other vegetable starches. The company called it Biopol.
In 2004 the word “microplastic” was first coined by marine biologist professor Richard Thompson in his research paper called “Lost at Sea: Where Is All the Plastic?”. In this paper they noted the presence of tiny plastic particles in plankton dating back to the 1960s with an increase over time as plastic production increased. While large plastic items could cause suffocation and entanglement and disrupt the digestion in fish, birds, and mammals, it was unclear what microplastic did once ingested. And they knew for sure that it got ingested, as their tests on amphipods (detritivores – organisms that obtain nutrients by consuming dead, decomposing plant and animal tissues and fecal matter), lugworms (deposit feeders), and barnacles (filter feeders) showed.
Research on microplastics is continuously increasing as this topic receives more attention and the tools used by scientists become more efficient. Today, researchers are not only looking at the impact on marine life but are looking inside our bodies.
Think of all the plastic globally produced since 1950. Out of that around 9% was recycled and 12-19% incinerated. Which means that around 79% or more of that plastic is still out there. In the environment or landfills. Continuously breaking down.
The industry knew that recycling was not a solution. Internal reports from the 1980s showed that plastic was not effective or economical to recycle, that it was cheaper to use virgin plastic, and still, they continued to push the recycling narrative.
The introduction of the Resin Identification Codes within the universal recycling symbol was another tactic to mislead the consumers. Having recycling codes on all products gives the impression that it is all recyclable, but markets exist only for #1 (PET) and #2 (HDPE). These codes were introduced in 1988 by the Plastics Industry Association. To make things even worse, producers do not have to disclose the exact list of chemicals they used in the production of their finished products. This poses difficulties in the recycling process. They create combinations of materials that are well suited for their products but make recycling impossible. An example would be chips bags with their many layers of different types of plastic and aluminium foil.
There is a
real reason why recycled plastic cannot compete with virgin plastic. It is not economically viable. Recycling plastic is a complex process. You need to gather used plastic, sort it, clean it and in each of these steps you can encounter complications. For example, sorting plastic is not that easy. Producers are not obliged to disclose the chemicals they used. Materials contain different dyes, a mixture of materials, all of which reduces the quality of the recycled plastic or compromises the entire batch, making it non-recyclable. Cleaning dirty plastic to make it food-grade again is a laborious process.
In turn, virgin plastic is made from ethane, an ingredient that is given away almost for free by the fracking industry. Ethane is a “natural gas liquid” that comes out of the ground as a byproduct of Methane, or natural gas, harvesting. Methane fuels our power plants, heats our homes and gives us the gas we cook with. Producers must get rid of the ethane or risk well shutdowns. They can get rid of a small amount of ethane by mixing it in with the methane or by burning it on site. The rest of it gets offloaded to plastic producers at extremely small prices.
Recycling has been sold to us as the solution to our plastic waste problem by the people that were profiting from the production of plastic to avoid regulation.
The petrochemical historical block comprises more than just the petrostates, corporations and business alliances with a common interest in expanding plastics production, but also includes international and national institutions, certain large nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), consultancy firms and broader social forces of consent that legitimize the profit-making of the global plastics industry.
Plastic production is a big industry and one that is constantly expanding with production increases. In 2023 the global plastic production was 413.8 million metric tons, or roughly the weight of 3.45 million blue whales. This number is twice the production quantity of two decades prior, and the number is projected to double in the next 20 years and nearly triple by 2060 if current trends continue.
Since plastic is a by-product from the fossil fuel industry, the petrochemical industry is hoping to pivot towards plastic following the phasing out of fossil fuels. Billions are currently being invested in building new plastic producing factories.
Since 2022, over 170 nations have been negotiating a Global Legally Binding Plastics Treaty to address the full lifecycle of plastic. The negotiations involve deeply divided parties with a coalition of countries and civil society groups demanding strong, legally binding controls, facing off against fossil fuel interests and petrostates who favour weaker voluntary measures focused primarily on waste management.
Over half of the state delegations called for a high-ambition plastics treaty during the negotiations in Busan, South Korea, in 2024. This group includes 80 to 100 countries and is comprised of the European Union, low-income and Island Nations from the Global South, other leading nations such as Panama, Rwanda, Peru, Honduras, Mexico, Switzerland to name a few.
Civil organizations and scientists also support a more restrictive outcome, these include Greenpeace, Pacific Environment, #BreakFreeFromPlastic, independent scientists and indigenous leaders.
The main arguments for strict legally binding rules are:
The “petrochemical historical bloc” is intensely focused on preventing upstream regulation. The main conflict is surrounding measures to reduce global plastics production. The opposition is led by Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran, strongly against any measure to cap or reduce production.
The petrochemical industry has a huge lobbying power. At the fifth session, held in Busan, there were a record 234 industry affiliated lobbyist registered. This outnumbered the independent scientists present three-to-one. Some lobbyists were also included in the state delegations, obtaining access to sensitive information and discussions. Because attending these negotiations is expensive due to flight and hotel costs, scientists, smaller countries and NGOs attendance is restricted, while rich industrial interests can dominate the discussion.
Another method of influencing negotiations is using intimidation tactics from the tobacco playbook: “challenge the science, challenge the messenger, try to silence people, try to undermine people’s credibility.” Scientists have been harassed, intimidated, shouted at to the point where some don’t have the courage to speak out.
The primary strategy of the petrochemical historical bloc is to frame plastic as a “waste management” issue, advocating for customer education, higher collection and recycling rates, chemical recycling as a new technology.
Reaching a consensus failed at the latest round of negotiations held in Geneva in August 2025 and a new date for the next negotiations was not yet announced.
There are multiple ways plastic escapes into the environment and while the sources may vary, some even surprise you the basics are universal: Macroplastic gets lost while micro- and nano-plastic particles are released via friction or heat or UV exposure.
Every time you wash synthetic clothing or put plastic containers or cutlery in your dishwasher, the hot water and friction of the wash cause microplastic particles to be released.
Some microplastic that goes directly down the drain are microbeads contained in cleaning products, toothpaste or exfoliating body care products.
Besides all these sources, we, as all other animals poop out plastic particles we ingested.
Since wastewater treatment plants are not equipped to catch and destroy these particles, they are either released in rivers or concentrated in sludge that gets spread out on agricultural land as a fertilizer.
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s we would take family trips in nature for a full day of barbecuing. After it was all done, we would throw our trash (plastic bottles, single use food containers) into the fire and burn it all before putting out the flames. It is easy to disregard that what you don’t see and we were avoiding the cardinal sin: littering. We were not nature haters but just uninformed. And while we don’t do that anymore, many people still do. Researchers discovered a new type of sediment they called plastiglomerate. This is melted plastic trash mixed with sediment, organic debris and in the case of the plastiglomerate discovered on Kamilo Beach in Hawaii it was coming from trash being burned at the campfire. Another way this type of composite can be born is fused together by the pressure in the deep oceans or by the hot rays of the sun on beaches.
Trash management systems leak plastic by losing it during transport, open landfills being exposed to the elements, leaching chemicals, microplastics or plastic being taken away by rainwater or wind.
In rural areas trash management systems are missing altogether or are too expensive, forcing people to illegally dump or burn their waste.
In certain areas, if trash disposal bins are not properly secured wild animals can take trash bags and scatter their contents. They can also ingest plastic and poop it out in more remote locations later.
Beyond the everyday failures of the system, extreme weather events can overwhelm even the best-managed infrastructure. Floods, hurricanes and storms can scatter entire landfill sites, washing vast quantities of plastic debris into rivers, coastal waters and ultimately the ocean. In this sense, climate change and the plastic crisis are directly entangled: a warming world produces more intense storms, which in turn spread plastic pollution further and faster than any individual act of littering ever could.
Glitter and confetti, beloved at parties and festivals, are essentially microplastic by design: tiny fragments of metallic plastic film that are, by their very nature, impossible to clean up and engineered to disperse. Even the so-called biodegradable versions often require industrial composting conditions that never materialise in practice.
One of the largest and least talked about sources of microplastic pollution is right under your feet every time you drive. Car and truck tires are made largely from synthetic rubber, which is a form of plastic. Every time a vehicle brakes, accelerates or turns, tiny particles are abraded from the tire surface and deposited on the road. Rainwater then washes these particles into storm drains and from there into rivers and the sea. Globally, tire wear is estimated to be one of the top sources of primary microplastics entering the ocean, contributing hundreds of thousands of tonnes per year. And because it happens invisibly, at the level of individual particles on every road in the world simultaneously, it is essentially impossible to stop without rethinking transportation itself.
Most paints — whether applied to buildings, vehicles, ships, or infrastructure like road markings — contain synthetic polymers as binders, which is what gives paint its adhesive and durable qualities. As paint weathers, flakes and deteriorates, it releases microplastic particles directly into the environment. Marine paints used on the hulls of ships are a particularly concentrated source, as they are designed to resist water and slowly shed their outer layer to prevent barnacle growth. Road markings are another overlooked contributor: every time a car drives over a freshly painted line, a tiny amount of plastic-laden paint is ground off. It is estimated that paint accounts for a meaningful share of microplastic pollution in both urban environments and coastal waters.
Artificial turf sports fields are filled with millions of small rubber crumbs — called infill — typically made from recycled tires. These crumbs migrate off the field with every game played, every rain shower, and every pair of boots that walks off the pitch. Studies have found these particles in nearby waterways, in the bodies of athletes who train on these surfaces, and in the soil surrounding the fields. Similarly, outdoor furniture, playground equipment and synthetic fabric shade structures all shed microplastics continuously through UV degradation and physical wear.
Agriculture is a quietly enormous contributor to plastic pollution, and one that rarely makes the headlines. Plastic is used extensively in modern farming: as greenhouse films and tunnel covers, as mulch films laid across soil to retain moisture and suppress weeds, as irrigation pipes, seed trays, silage wrap and the nets used to protect fruit crops. Much of this agricultural plastic is single-use and low-quality, making it difficult and uneconomical to recycle. In many regions it is simply burned in the field or left to fragment in place.
Mulch films are particularly problematic. As they degrade under UV exposure and tillage, they fragment into microplastics that become incorporated into the soil itself. Studies have found that agricultural soils in intensively farmed regions can contain higher concentrations of microplastics than ocean surface water. This is deeply concerning given that those same soils grow the food we eat. The wastewater sludge discussed earlier compounds the problem: when it is spread on fields as fertilizer, it deposits yet another layer of microplastics directly into the agricultural system.
By now, you might be thinking that you have a reasonable grasp of where plastic hides in your life. But the reality is that plastic has been engineered into so many products so quietly that even the most attentive consumer will be caught off guard. Here are some of the more surprising examples.
The inside of every metal can, whether it holds beer, soup, tomatoes or sparkling water, is coated with a thin layer of epoxy resin or other plastic-based lining. Without it, the acidic contents would corrode the metal. With it, you are drinking or eating food that has been in prolonged contact with plastic, which means the potential for chemical leaching is real, particularly with acidic or fatty foods. The lining is invisible and not disclosed on the label.
Thermal paper receipts are coated with BPA or its replacement BPS (both endocrine disrupting chemicals) which are what make the ink appear when heat is applied. Every time you handle a receipt, especially with moisturised or slightly wet hands, you absorb a measurable amount of these chemicals through your skin. Recycling a thermal receipt also contaminates the paper recycling stream, since the BPA-coated layer cannot be removed during processing.
Single-use electronic cigarettes are arguably one of the most reckless product designs of the past decade. Each device combines a plastic casing, a lithium battery, a heating coil and flavoured liquid, engineered to be used for a few hours and then thrown away. Because the battery and plastic casing are fused together, they cannot be separated for proper recycling and almost universally end up in general waste. Millions are discarded every week globally. They are simultaneously a plastic problem, a battery problem and a hazardous waste problem, wrapped in a brightly coloured shell and marketed to teenagers, who are more concerned with hiding their smoking habit than proper waste disposal.
Teabags from many major brands are sealed with polypropylene, a plastic used to fuse the paper fibres together. When you steep a teabag in boiling water, you are releasing billions of microplastic particles directly into your cup.
Reading all of this, it is natural to feel overwhelmed. The scale of the problem is genuinely staggering, and the uncomfortable truth is that no individual, no matter how careful or committed, can shop or sort their way out of a systemic crisis. Plastic pollution is not the result of personal failure. It is the result of decades of deliberate decisions made by corporations and governments to externalise the true cost of plastic onto the environment and onto future generations.
That said, awareness matters. Understanding the problem is the first step toward making better choices and, more importantly, toward demanding better systems. Because the real lever for change is not which brand of shampoo you buy. It is regulation. It is production caps. It is extended producer responsibility laws that make the companies that create plastic waste responsible for its end of life. It is a strict Global Plastic Treaty.
It is also worth acknowledging that reducing plastic in your personal life is not equally accessible to everyone. Plastic-free alternatives are frequently more expensive, less convenient and less available in lower-income communities and in many parts of the world. The conscious consumer framing, however well-intentioned, can slide into moralising if it ignores the reality that choosing sustainable options is a privilege not everyone shares. The goal should be a world where the sustainable choice is also the easy, affordable and default choice — and that requires structural change, not just individual willpower.
You can, however, take some actions to reduce microplastic exposure and plastic pollution by following a few tips, as much as possible:
But more important: vote, sign petitions, support organisations fighting for plastic legislation and do not let the conversation stop at the recycling bin.
There are many exciting things happening to tackle plastic pollution, from the Ocean Cleanup Project to fungi-based plastic, microbes that eat plastic and microplastics capture systems. All this deserves an article of its own.
Subscribe to the newsletter to be notified when that comes out.
Georgia Amson-Bradshaw – Plastic Planet. How Plastic came to rule the world (and what you can do to change it)
Albert Bates – Transforming Plastic. From Pollution to Evolution
Mohd. Shahnawaz, Manisha K. Sangale, Zhu Daochen, Avinash B. Ade – Impact of Plastic Waste on the Marine Biota 2022
Will McCallum – How to Give Up Plastic: A Guide to Changing the World, One Plastic Bottle at a Time
Matt Simon – A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies
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