There was a time when human products were ecological and sustainable, or at least much more natural before the invention of plastic. Ropes and nets were out of hemp, pots and kitchenware were out of clay, iron or copper, or even wood or tightly woven straw, clothes were made out of natural material like linen, hemp, wool or cotton; toothbrushes and combs, too, bottles were made of gourds, glass or clay, or later ceramics, wicker baskets were made out of willow rods, and grocery bags were out of hemp ropes. When it became worn out it could have decomposed in or on the soil. We should not romanticize it as the Romans were poisoned by lead that the enamel of their kitchenware contained (or maybe just slaves were fed up with them and did it on purpose). Also the blacksmiths became sick due to the vapor of the molten ore. And, I guess, others got other ailments. Now, we are surrounded by plastic wherever we go – it's lighter and cheaper. But is it cheaper on the long run? Now, humans produce almost 20,000 plastic bottles per day and across the world in 2016 480 bn plastic drinking bottles were sold worldwide. And, these are just plastic bottles. Between 5m and 13m tones of plastic leaks into the oceans, and is consumed by marine animals and people who eat seafood, ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic every year, tells us this article. More data can be obtained here and here is a more recent study about synthetic polymer contamination in global drinking water. Those articles tell that plastic is produced at higher rate than it could be recycled (now ca. 10% is recycled), even though quite some initiatives have been established to depolymerize used plastic back into gasoline (but first it has to be collected and delivered to such a factory), to use it as construction material in form of bricks or building blocks (will it be hazardless to live in?), to harden the asphalt, to use as plates against flooding. I don’t want to moralize, but we should reconsider what we do on this planet. We extract crude oil from the Earth, produce some products and throw it all around the planet where they poison other creatures and eventually us. What we do to the planet and our fellow creatures we do to ourselves.
