A blog by Johan Schot (Director of the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex and Professor in History of Technology and Sustainability Transition Studies), invited speaker at our Annual Meeting 2017:
In the 1950s plastics were the future. They still are. The 9 million tons produced since the first plastics revolution has a very long, very durable one. With 13 billion tons calculated to be in landfill by 2050 and our seas a ‘plastic soup’, what we do with all this most ‘convenient’ of materials is of paramount concern. We are currently disposing the equivalent of a rubbish truck of plastics into our oceans each and every minute. Micro-plastic has entered the food chain with foods such as mussels showing tiny ingested fragments. Think of that next time you’re in Paris ordering moules et frites.
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