I work in an automotive warehouse, let me tell you a secret. A plastic plug housing is molded in Indiana. It goes into a box, to a pallet, wrapped in plastic and plastic banded. It goes on a truck, to a port, to a ship and sent to China. The ship is offloaded and trucks take the pallet to a plant where the plastic is thrown away and the housing has three copper plugs inserted. Then it gets boxed up, placed on a pallet, wrapped and strapped, put onto a truck, onto a ship and sent to India. The ship is offloaded and trucks take the pallet to a factory that assembles the wiring harness and placed into a box. That box is placed on a pallet that is wrapped and strapped, put on a truck, to a ship and sent back to the US. The ship is offloaded and the pallets are yet again trucked to Indiana. Where the plastic us thrown away and the wiring harness is used. Every step of the way, plastic is used in obscene quantities. Banning single use straws isn't doing shit to help.
@@julm7744 I hear ya. I am not (obviously) an Apple user. My current phone is Android and I use whatever random USB charger I have laying around with a USB C cable. And my phone, a Motorola Moto Stylus 5g 2021 model I bought THIS year, (because I ALWAYS buy LAST YEAR'S model when I buy, Saves money!!!) STILL has a 3.5mm audio jack. THAT and an actual FM tuner. any phone without these are a DEAL BREAKER for me! It also INCLUDED a charger and cable! I'm still pissed that it has no removable battery. So much "e waste" would be saved if some removable battery standard was adopted. It's NOT HARD, we have done this with radios and other portable electronics for DECADES.
There are rivers in China that you can walk across on the garbage floating on the water. If you slip and go between garbage and into the water no one would ever be able to find you to rescue you. Not that you would _want_ to be rescued because the water is so toxic you would have health issues for the rest of your life. But, it's America that has to clean up it's act...
The thing I hate most about the plastic issue, is the emphasis is still on the consumer to do the 'right' thing. But not everyone has the privilege of choosing what their food comes packaged in. Not everyone has the privilege of being able to swap from plastic straws to alternatives due to disability (unfortunately a lot 'swaps' aren't disability friendly, so disabled people have to constantly defend their needs, and feel guilty for needing plastic). Not everyone is able to recycle every type of plastic (or any in some cases). I am very much for sustainable changes, but companies are the ones that need to make big changes, but unfortunately they won't unless required by governments, as currently plastic is the cheaper option, and recycling won't be affordable until companies start using the end product (plus, many 'alternatives' such as paper straws can't be recycled if it has food residue on it).
I think I saw.... Or heard it somewhere and it perfectly explains plastic. 1950s: _Excited_ "Oh my god it lasts forever" 2000s and later: _Panicked_ "OH MY GOD IT LASTS FOREVER"
@@rocketamadeus3730 Other , less historically important sideprojects videos have a longer duration.. But yeah Casual criminalist i tend not to bother with. Like the Wayne gacy one that was over 2 hours long... I love simon but thats just too much lol
Inventing something gives you the right to name it after yourself! Screw humility, you created something that has never been created before! You earned that pride.
That's adorable. "Gives you the right." There is no such thing to be given. You discovered something that nature can do with a little push; good for you, get out of the way and let nature have the credit. Your effort to find it was useful, but now it's done. Everything beyond that point is your pride and your pride alone, and the rest of us will have to pay the cost for it.
A German psychologist, Otfrid Foerster, studied the phenomenon of punning and labelled it a narcissistic compulsion. He named it... 'Foerster Syndrome'.
Go back to glass, and metal, then be back to old fashioned sterilization machines for reuse. More waste, more labor, more cost, more risk of infection. No thanks, Ill keep my single use plastic.
@@dave8599 not saying it’s right or wrong just an observation. Thank you for the reply. But more waste? More Labor? Have a think Dave, then get back to me with a valid and useful comment. I’ll use more than 60 pairs of disposable gloves and generally fill at least 1, sometime 2 or 3 bin bags full of plastic (and paper). This doesn’t include all the infected and blood/body fluid stained materials (which at a guess is more then double again) Even with the effort of literal thousands of staff trying to recycle. Uncountable amounts of recyclable material ends up in landfill or is incinerated. I do not know any of the facts involved with hospital waste incineration, but I’d be very interested to find out. I’m sure Dave will let me know that he likes the look and smell of fire, but any one with actual info, cheers.
"The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic...plastic came out of the earth! The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place! It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us." -George Carlin
Thanks for ending this on a positive/hopeful note. It can get tiring to hear all of the doom and gloom all the time while progress (though sometimes small) is ignored.
My Dad job was to engineer new plastic/rubber. I've had a lifetime of hearing about plastic on and off and I still have questions from time to time. I would have to agree whole heartedly with you!
And a plastic bag found at the bottom of the Mariana trench - Challenger deep - THE DEEPEST known spot in our oceans we're aware of so far. Plunging to a whopping 6.86 miles beneath the waves!
So what... U still alive aren't you?...u need to concentrate on your own life instead of crying like a child over things you have very minute influence over...
plastic verses glass containers save significant weight, which means less fuel used in transport. 5000 glass bottle weigh a lot, verse 5000 plastic bottle. Also millions of dollars of product is saved from broken containers when using plastic verses glass.
Individual aka Single Serve items are the biggest issue. Glass and plastic wouldn’t be such a bad thing if things weren’t MEANT to be thrown away after one use.
As a child I dropped a glass bottle of milk over my grandparents carpet, that led them to change to plastic for their and my safety (finding shards of glass in carpet is not that easy). While I agree many bottles could be glass, glass is heavy (not suitable for children, the elderly, and many disabled people), and when it comes to certain types of bottles (baby bottles in particular), plastic is easier to sanitize to prevent infection.
Interesting fact about the great garbage patch in the Pacific is that there are many animals actually making use of it as a source of shelter, which has led some scientists to studying animals pulled up by the cleaning crews.
If indeed the plastic is as durable as is said, it would be interesting to see what sort of ecology developed under and on top of it. One could easily see that as animal droppings and other organic waste accumulated on it that at some point plants would start to grow and animals would take up residence upon it. If nothing is done about it in a thousand years it could become a genuine floating island with palm trees and birds and all of that. That's essentially how the ecology of all islands emerges, as islands are born as barren, often flaming-hot and sterile bare rock. As bird crap and floating organic debris gradually accumulate upon it, you often end up with something very nice after a few millennia.
Prob should take the time to mention that the problem of plastics in the ocean, at least plastics from land, are caused OVERWHELMINGLY by a single relatively small country: The Philippines. They account for like 40% of all plastic in the ocean.
I have to clarify that the oceanic "garbage patches" are just higher density areas of plastics and are not literal country sized floating plastic trash heaps. In fact with out testing the water in a lab you would not see any difference in person and the plastic while harmful is also beneficial to some forms of life and plastic eating bacteria..
In the mid-1960s, Oregon assessed an extraordinary 30 cent deposit / return for the polyethylene gallon milk-jugs which had displaced glass equivalents. The hoods I hung-out with were delighted at the early- morning easy-pickings.
At what 30 cents mid 60s is worth in today's money, it would have been worth it for those in neighboring states to load up car trucks of those items to return to places in Oregon.
It’s scary how plastics are almost essential to our daily lives now. It’s tragic that it’s messing up the environment. I’m glad we’re finding better resources to combat the problem but I worry if it isn’t too little too late? 😢
Plastic in wear surfaces like roads sounds like a great way to contribute to the microplastics issue. It'd be better to melt the stuff, pull it into fibers, and use it as a reinforcing filler in concrete, like in floor slabs or house foundations. Something that's going to be there for a good long time without any significant wear.
One thing I wish was more often discussed is plastic's effect on our health "Plastic products contain chemical additives. A number of these chemicals have been associated with serious health problems such as hormone-related cancers, infertility and neurodevelopment disorders like ADHD and autism."
If you're using PLA filament you shouldn't feel bad, it's a bioplastic made from renewable sources, and while it isn't necessarily biodegradable, it is easily recycled into new filament. In terms of plastics, it's one of the more environmentally friendly options
One thing a *lot* of people don't realize is that most plastics are petrochemical-based. Even if the whole world switched 100% to electric cars *tomorrow* we would still be hooked on oil for *quite* some time due to this fact.
You briefly touched on one plastic product that has had an outsized impact probably beyond all others: Celluloid. I'm not a materials scientist so I might get some of the details wrong but generally here's how the stuff came about. Celluloid is a semisynthetic plastic made by plasticising plain old cellulose, usually in the form of cotton. One of the ways this is done is by combining the cellulose with nitrogen to create nitrocellulose, which is the very celluloid that the movie/film industry was built upon. It can be transparent or even totally clear, which makes it ideal. Oh, and the source of the nitrogen is nitroglycerine. It means that nitrocellulose is highly inflammable and even explosive under the right conditions, e.g. a confined, sealed space into which the rapidly generated gasses of combustion have nowhere to escape. This is bad for the use and storage of celluloid film and picture negatives but terrific if what you want to do is kill people on an industrial scale. This is the exact same product that was shredded and used as a projectile propellant in early-modern firearms, known originally as guncotton and then as smokeless gunpowder, this development coming of age in the 1880s in France. Note that when used as a firearms propellant ("gunpowder") it does indeed create a lot less smoke than the traditional potassium nitrate based gunpowder, also known as black powder. But the lack of unsightly smoke is the least of its advantages over traditional gunpowder. The other two features are that smokeless gunpowder leaves very little residue behind after combustion at least as compared to black powder; and that detonating it is far, far more energetic than doing the same with black powder. That had two outsized effects: smokeless powder firearms were vastly more powerful than those burning black powder, and they could be fired repeatedly in extremely high volume, and generated so little residue that rather than gumming up the works of a firearm in just twenty or thirty shots as black powder did, they could be fired thousands of times before the residue rendered them inoperable. As coincidence would have it, American inventor Hiram Maxim was inventing the very first autoloading, repeating, self-powered firearm in history at around the same time as smokeless powder hit the scene. Maxim would christen his invention the "machine gun." The initial versions actually used black powder cartridges and functioned well enough but were rapidly rendered inoperable after fifty or 100 shots until the weapon could be extensively cleaned. Switching to smokeless powder ammunition was the last puzzle piece to snap into place in the invention of the machinegun. Result: a semisynthetic plastic made from plant cellulose became part of the technology that caused men to be slaughtered in their hundreds of thousands, on an apocalyptic and nightmarish scale unprecedented in world history in the aptly-named Great War (WW1). When you also factor in that nearly every rifle carried by every soldier, as well as much or most of the artillery used in the conflict also used nitrocellulose as a propellant, well you could say that the invention had a hand in the vast majority of casualties in the war. Since some variation on the Maxim machinegun was used by every combatant on both sides in the war save only the land of Maxim's birth (the USA), after the war some journalist made the statement that the Great War was actually won "by a quiet country gentleman living in Kent" (Maxim.) But the slaughter committed with Maxim's monster baby would not have been possible were it not for plain old celluloid, nitrocellulose, gun cotton. Not many inventions about which you can claim are largely responsible for the deaths of literally millions. It's a big result for an invention of such mundane origins. About the only other invention that even remotely falls into the same category was Alfred Nobel's invention Dynamite, the first practical -- which is to say relatively safe to store and use -- high explosive and coincidentally also a nitroglycerine-based invention. It, and variations on it were in almost every single artillery warhead fired off during the Great War, and artillery killed more soldiers than even bullets did. For his part Nobel was so horrified that butchery was to be his legacy for all time that he used a bunch of money to found and fund the Nobel prizes, including the legendary Peace Prize, a continuing guilt-trip that one hopes has had some practical and positive real-world effects since it came into existence. Maxim had no such misgivings. He was an inventor, plain and simple, and one so brilliant that Thomas Edison paid him off big to move himself to the UK so as to avoid denting Edison's overblown ego and reputation as American wunderkind inventor No. 1. By all reports Maxim happily tinkered and invented until the end of his life.
Holy crap, I just googled ossuaries. I didn't when I woke up, but I think I now want to see a room full of human bones. So... thanks for that, I guess 😅.
Much like the philosopher that said once all is discovered there will be less and less to discover we are on the cusp of a truly modern era we are discovering the by products of materialism
And yet, it's not us end consumers that are the biggest problem-user of plastics, it's industry and commerce that are obscene users, and often very irresponsible in the ways they dispose of it...
I’m sure that had plastic not been developed, most everything that is now made from plastic, would be made with something like wood pulp and plant or animal based glue.
A finnish group of researchers recently demonstrated the paper they had created. It can replace the see-through plastic in food item packages. Interestingly enough, when you season your cast-iron pan by frying grease, you create polymer layers. One thing missing from this video was a discussion about micro plastics that are being found everywhere, inside human bodies and even inside little babies. As far as in the ice at the poles. And we don't know what those micro-sized plastic pieces can do in bodies. We simply have no idea how to research and observe the effects. It could just as well be a cause for epidemics in recent decades like IBS and cancers, and whatnot.
Your mumbling made a line sound like, "a material like my mother, it's strength relative to it's weight makes it invaluable in industrial sectors." 2:00
What kills me is that our inability to appropriately dispose of plastics is so prolific that when Simon mentioned the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the writers didn't feel the need to elaborate as to what it was; it's as though things have gotten so bad, they automatically assumed the viewer would already knew what it was. How sad it is, that this is what the world has come to? That this is our legacy? 😔 I've become more optimistic in recent years whenever I see articles that come out saying that they've found new ways to break down plastics using various methods other than melting them down, which produces a lot of carbon into the environment- but in what reality are we talking would they'd be able to produce it and distribute it into the hands of communities across the world? And what would the timeline look like? How much would it cost? There are numerous ways that scientists are working on right now, so who's to say if there could end up being a standard or if we'll have more than one option down the road? So, yeah. It's comforting to see that the technology is possible, but I'm skeptical as to how the execution will pan out. :/
The problem with plastics: 1) Industrial production of plastics, especially single-use, 2) Unchecked consumer culture, 3) Recycling confusion--and subterfuge. That said, plastic-reliant businesses certainly can't be counted on to check themselves, so the onus may fall on us consumers to try to keep plastics out of the waste stream. But how can we do that in a meaningful way? We don't have the power of industry behind us. We're just random singular entities.
Not directly. Glass is chemically stable and inert with no environmental impact beyond occupying space. Indirectly glass used about 8x more fuel to transport than glass. The trade off there is that the mass adoption of plastics resulted in several orders of magnitude more petroleum being used than the what was saved by the weight reduction from switching to plastic.
As I recall, soft drink glass bottles had a deposit. Virtually all of the bottles were returned to the place of purchase, then washed and reused. The PET plastic now used for most soft drinks can only be recycled 10 times to create the same quality plastic, however its recycling rate in North America is around 35%. Glass and aluminum are two of the most easily recycled materials that produce the exact same product. Plastics by their nature are almost always far cheaper to produce from "virgin feedstock" (petrochemicals) than recycled stock.
Remember the "Great Oxidation Event?" Just wait till some bacteria evolves to efficiently eat plastic and shjt cyanide or phosphine gas or something. That'll fix the plastic problem.
The big problem with recicling is that it's not as financialy rewarding as recicling other materials like metal. If that aspect would be tackled than pollution would be much smaller. A good thing is that biodegradable plastic has been implemented in a lot of industries.
Fun fact the Roman's had a material referred to as *bendable glass* whether it was a strange form of glass or a simple plastic or rubber or what we dont know
But NOW I hear that the entire switch to reusable 'cloth, etc' shopping bags is JUST as bad for the environment as single use plastic bags, once you consider ALL of the elements involved? From pollution caused by the initial production of 'reusable' bags, which tend to suffer damage and frequently need to be replaced nearly as often as if people just REUSED the 'old' 'single use' plastic bags a few times.. To the 'energy' expended to simply first INTRODUCE and MANAGE the change...
@@winblasers2 They’re thicker, but not more durable. The lifespan of a cotton bag is measured in years. High durability bag lifespans are measured in hours.
@@StoneInMySandal That's interesting. I'd say thicker plastic bags are definitely more durable than single-use ones, single-use ones get slashed and stretch too easily
Recently a plastic shopping bag was found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the lowest part of the earths oceans. The real problem occurs when plastic breaks down to microscopic particles that are then ingested by all sorts of animals.
Hemp (no, not marijuana) resins can be made into any plastic product or blended with other polymers and is biodegradable and compostable. Since it comes from a plant, it is also more nature friendly than petroleum based plastic products.
Whoever is reading this, i pray that whatever you’re going through gets better and whatever you’re struggling with or worrying about is going to be fine and that everyone has a fantastic day! Amen
Plastic is not good for heating things in the microwave. Chemicals can leach into the food. Foods like tomato sauce can stain the container. Accidently heat too long and a plastic container could melt, produce toxic smoke or catch fire. Better to use glass or ceramic containers to heat things in a microwave.
@@robertvirginiabeach Sigh. Of course you are correct, rvb. I've just had this "Tupperware Fetish" ever since I was just wee! Maybe I just related it to the famous "Tupperware Partys" Thanks for the tip.:)
I was eating cereal out of a Tupperware bowl while watching this! Probably been using that same bowl for 30+ years . Actually as far back as I can remember. It’s part of a set my Mom owned back in the day. It’s been a heck of a bowl. Tupperware is good stuff! Not all heirlooms are made of fine china.
You completely left out the harmful health (carcinogenic--cancer-causing) effects of plastics on people and animals. (Can't post link to Endocrine organization website because comment keeps getting deleted.)
I think anything we used glass, stone, or metal for in the past should still have plastic as an option. But pack in the day, no one was using glass, stone, or metal for DISPOSABLE goods. Bags as a primary. We have used metal for utensils, but those utensils were not disposable. Plastic can be wonderfully durable, and lightweight, but those features are best suited for things you intend to keep and use for decades, not just for a single lunch break.
First thing we can do is stop making plastic things "thinner and lighter". That means when my laptop, tablet, or phone battery wears out, I'll have to throw them away and get something new. Rather than replace the battery and continue using it for twice as long. Of course, Apple and Google are making their OS more bloated, so I won't want to keep it, so I can have the latest version of the software.
Who was the ecologist that said in the 60s, if we don't fix it now we won't be able to. What did people do? They waited until they saw the damage! Too late!
Twinbrook Creameries in Lynden WA sells Milk, Strawberry milk, incomprehensibly delicious Chocolate milk in glass bottles. Half Pint, one pint and half gallon. $2.00 bottle deposit, worth every penny. Available at most Safeways.
Again, I repeat…plastic was inevitable. The NEED and USES are just soooooo widespread. We couldn’t progress without it. Yes, it is covering our planet, and we’ve been playing with it since babies (toys)….we now have to find a way to fix our problem…our inevitable problem.
1:02 When I heard this line, I thought of another movie quote: in Star Trek 4 (the one with the whales), Scotty says to the 1986-engineer “I understand you're still working with polymers”; the engineer then replies, “Still!? What else would I be working with?”
Only because they have pretty much all their population centers on the coast or on rivers. In terms of total plastic waste per capita, the US ranks first, followed by the UK, South Korea, and Germany, but thankfully most of that doesnt flow into the ocean. Although it still harms the environment when it gets incinerated or tossed on a dump of course.
I'm a little disappointed to see Simon fall for the same "water vapor rising from a nuclear plant cooling tower = pollution" trope that is so common to see in environmental videos.
I hope those plastic eating animals do end up being our savior…but… I wonder what will happen when there are so many of those little plastic animals that THEY themselves evolve to eating the containment cement and so on…..until it’s become the “grey goo”
my only slight gripe here, would be that the inbetween screen's music is a bit loud compared to the talking parts. tried to sleep, while this was playing and the louder parts kinda made me jump each time lol
Burn the plastic in a chamber where you can pipe the volatile through distillation towers, let the CO2 feed plants break down the other volitales via more burning.
I work in an automotive warehouse, let me tell you a secret. A plastic plug housing is molded in Indiana. It goes into a box, to a pallet, wrapped in plastic and plastic banded. It goes on a truck, to a port, to a ship and sent to China.
The ship is offloaded and trucks take the pallet to a plant where the plastic is thrown away and the housing has three copper plugs inserted. Then it gets boxed up, placed on a pallet, wrapped and strapped, put onto a truck, onto a ship and sent to India.
The ship is offloaded and trucks take the pallet to a factory that assembles the wiring harness and placed into a box. That box is placed on a pallet that is wrapped and strapped, put on a truck, to a ship and sent back to the US. The ship is offloaded and the pallets are yet again trucked to Indiana. Where the plastic us thrown away and the wiring harness is used.
Every step of the way, plastic is used in obscene quantities. Banning single use straws isn't doing shit to help.
@@julm7744 Meanwhile, you'll be told NOT to use a NON-APPLE charger. 🤦♂️
@@julm7744 I hear ya. I am not (obviously) an Apple user. My current phone is Android and I use whatever random USB charger I have laying around with a USB C cable. And my phone, a Motorola Moto Stylus 5g 2021 model I bought THIS year, (because I ALWAYS buy LAST YEAR'S model when I buy, Saves money!!!) STILL has a 3.5mm audio jack. THAT and an actual FM tuner. any phone without these are a DEAL BREAKER for me! It also INCLUDED a charger and cable! I'm still pissed that it has no removable battery. So much "e waste" would be saved if some removable battery standard was adopted. It's NOT HARD, we have done this with radios and other portable electronics for DECADES.
I heard that plastic straws were harming sea life like turtles.
You just made Greta Thunberg cry,, you meany.
@@vanpenguin22 *The cold malicious indifference of capitalism has entered the chat*
Highly skeptical of China enforcing a plastic bag ban when they're doing stuff like painting mountains green.
I'm in China, and there is definitely no enforcment of stated ban.
...and considering the Pacific Patch is largely their plastic, yeah, I think your skepticism is warranted.
@@justinpaul3110 you mean "your plastic"?
@@teemuleppa3347 no I mean what I said. 80% of all of the plastic in the ocean is coming from less than a dozen rivers in Asia and Africa.
There are rivers in China that you can walk across on the garbage floating on the water.
If you slip and go between garbage and into the water no one would ever be able to find you to rescue you.
Not that you would _want_ to be rescued because the water is so toxic you would have health issues for the rest of your life.
But, it's America that has to clean up it's act...
The cell Simon keeps Danny locked up inside down in the basement is mostly plastic for easy cleaning.
The thing I hate most about the plastic issue, is the emphasis is still on the consumer to do the 'right' thing. But not everyone has the privilege of choosing what their food comes packaged in. Not everyone has the privilege of being able to swap from plastic straws to alternatives due to disability (unfortunately a lot 'swaps' aren't disability friendly, so disabled people have to constantly defend their needs, and feel guilty for needing plastic). Not everyone is able to recycle every type of plastic (or any in some cases). I am very much for sustainable changes, but companies are the ones that need to make big changes, but unfortunately they won't unless required by governments, as currently plastic is the cheaper option, and recycling won't be affordable until companies start using the end product (plus, many 'alternatives' such as paper straws can't be recycled if it has food residue on it).
I think I saw.... Or heard it somewhere and it perfectly explains plastic.
1950s: _Excited_ "Oh my god it lasts forever"
2000s and later: _Panicked_ "OH MY GOD IT LASTS FOREVER"
That reminds me of a cartoon about Frankenstein:
Panel #1 - Excited "It's alive!"
Panel #2 - Frankenstein's facial expression changes
Panel #3 - Horrified: "It's ALIVE!"
If we ever run low on what's used to make plastic, they'll be some company sorting thru the various garbage dumps to recover the plastic there.
I feel you kind of breezed through this.... like it deserved more given its world changing nature, both good and bad.
That's the script. If you want drawn out tedious Simon you have to go to his Casual Criminalist channel.
@@rocketamadeus3730 Other , less historically important sideprojects videos have a longer duration.. But yeah Casual criminalist i tend not to bother with. Like the Wayne gacy one that was over 2 hours long... I love simon but thats just too much lol
Maybe a Mega Project
It also sounds like Simon might have a cold. So, he might've rushed through it.
Simon: Remarks on people not being humble because they named stuff after themselves.
Also Simon: Has something called the Simonverse/Whistlerverse.
Yeah, but WE named the Whistlerverse, not Simon.
Inventing something gives you the right to name it after yourself! Screw humility, you created something that has never been created before! You earned that pride.
That's adorable. "Gives you the right." There is no such thing to be given. You discovered something that nature can do with a little push; good for you, get out of the way and let nature have the credit. Your effort to find it was useful, but now it's done. Everything beyond that point is your pride and your pride alone, and the rest of us will have to pay the cost for it.
A German psychologist, Otfrid Foerster, studied the phenomenon of punning and labelled it a narcissistic compulsion.
He named it... 'Foerster Syndrome'.
@@NarwahlGaming I take it Otfrid wasn't familiar with the concept of irony?
I work in an NHS operating department, the amount of plastic and single use plastic incredible.
Go back to glass, and metal, then be back to old fashioned sterilization machines for reuse. More waste, more labor, more cost, more risk of infection. No thanks, Ill keep my single use plastic.
@@dave8599 not saying it’s right or wrong just an observation. Thank you for the reply. But more waste? More Labor? Have a think Dave, then get back to me with a valid and useful comment.
I’ll use more than 60 pairs of disposable gloves and generally fill at least 1, sometime 2 or 3 bin bags full of plastic (and paper). This doesn’t include all the infected and blood/body fluid stained materials (which at a guess is more then double again)
Even with the effort of literal thousands of staff trying to recycle. Uncountable amounts of recyclable material ends up in landfill or is incinerated. I do not know any of the facts involved with hospital waste incineration, but I’d be very interested to find out.
I’m sure Dave will let me know that he likes the look and smell of fire, but any one with actual info, cheers.
@@dave8599 I really do fail to see where they asked for your incredibly incorrect and remarkably ill-informed opinion.
Landfills are simply storage facilities for our grandchildren to mine for new products in the future.
"The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic...plastic came out of the earth!
The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children.
Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place!
It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us."
-George Carlin
Thanks for ending this on a positive/hopeful note. It can get tiring to hear all of the doom and gloom all the time while progress (though sometimes small) is ignored.
Kinda surprised that plastic is only a side project.
My thoughts exactly.... It deserved more.
My Dad job was to engineer new plastic/rubber. I've had a lifetime of hearing about plastic on and off and I still have questions from time to time. I would have to agree whole heartedly with you!
Micro plastic has been discovered in Antarctica. It's everywhere... including inside all of us...
And a plastic bag found at the bottom of the Mariana trench - Challenger deep - THE DEEPEST known spot in our oceans we're aware of so far.
Plunging to a whopping 6.86 miles beneath the waves!
Even in human fetal tissue
Plastic will always have a place in our hearts.
So what... U still alive aren't you?...u need to concentrate on your own life instead of crying like a child over things you have very minute influence over...
@@gibsons7057 Go eat a can of tuna
Plastic itself isn’t inherently bad, it’s the way humans use it and “dispose” of it that’s bad
Bingo.
Replacing glass bottles with plastic ones was one of the worst crimes we as humans did to ourselves.
Indeed it is!
You've never dropped a bottle of liquor before have you?
plastic verses glass containers save significant weight, which means less fuel used in transport. 5000 glass bottle weigh a lot, verse 5000 plastic bottle.
Also millions of dollars of product is saved from broken containers when using plastic verses glass.
Individual aka Single Serve items are the biggest issue. Glass and plastic wouldn’t be such a bad thing if things weren’t MEANT to be thrown away after one use.
As a child I dropped a glass bottle of milk over my grandparents carpet, that led them to change to plastic for their and my safety (finding shards of glass in carpet is not that easy). While I agree many bottles could be glass, glass is heavy (not suitable for children, the elderly, and many disabled people), and when it comes to certain types of bottles (baby bottles in particular), plastic is easier to sanitize to prevent infection.
Interesting fact about the great garbage patch in the Pacific is that there are many animals actually making use of it as a source of shelter, which has led some scientists to studying animals pulled up by the cleaning crews.
If indeed the plastic is as durable as is said, it would be interesting to see what sort of ecology developed under and on top of it. One could easily see that as animal droppings and other organic waste accumulated on it that at some point plants would start to grow and animals would take up residence upon it. If nothing is done about it in a thousand years it could become a genuine floating island with palm trees and birds and all of that. That's essentially how the ecology of all islands emerges, as islands are born as barren, often flaming-hot and sterile bare rock. As bird crap and floating organic debris gradually accumulate upon it, you often end up with something very nice after a few millennia.
@@josephledux8598 "IF" the world won't last that long, with all the idiots we have in power around the world
Prob should take the time to mention that the problem of plastics in the ocean, at least plastics from land, are caused OVERWHELMINGLY by a single relatively small country: The Philippines. They account for like 40% of all plastic in the ocean.
I have to clarify that the oceanic "garbage patches" are just higher density areas of plastics and are not literal country sized floating plastic trash heaps. In fact with out testing the water in a lab you would not see any difference in person and the plastic while harmful is also beneficial to some forms of life and plastic eating bacteria..
We are creating a new food chain
In the mid-1960s, Oregon assessed an extraordinary 30 cent deposit / return for the polyethylene gallon milk-jugs which had displaced glass equivalents. The hoods I hung-out with were delighted at the early- morning easy-pickings.
At what 30 cents mid 60s is worth in today's money, it would have been worth it for those in neighboring states to load up car trucks of those items to return to places in Oregon.
The "Bottle Bill" in Oregon didn't pass until 1971, and it was 5 cents... not 30 cents... but cool story, bro.
I LOVE this video. Thank you Simon for taking the time to bring up an issue that many just want to sweep under the rug
"Sweep under the rug"? Um, where tf have you been for the past 20 years?
what's the rug made from?
It's worrying that everywhere and everywhere is made of plastics. Our containers, TVs, packaging, toys, etc, and even worse, my friends are plastic.
1:00 - Chapter 1 - How it works
2:25 - Chapter 2 - History
6:30 - Chapter 3 - Impact
- Chapter 4 -
- Chapter 5 -
- Chapter 6 -
Without plastic, household 3D printing would never have been developed. That would be very sad, indeed.
It’s scary how plastics are almost essential to our daily lives now. It’s tragic that it’s messing up the environment. I’m glad we’re finding better resources to combat the problem but I worry if it isn’t too little too late? 😢
Imagine Simon break into song the barbie song living in a plastic world.
Haha 😂😂
If that were the case, we'd be so much happier!
Some joy to be had!
Superb presentation and thanks xxx
Incredible article sir! I look forward to more videos like this.
Plastic in wear surfaces like roads sounds like a great way to contribute to the microplastics issue. It'd be better to melt the stuff, pull it into fibers, and use it as a reinforcing filler in concrete, like in floor slabs or house foundations. Something that's going to be there for a good long time without any significant wear.
One thing I wish was more often discussed is plastic's effect on our health
"Plastic products contain chemical additives. A number of these chemicals have been associated with serious health problems such as hormone-related cancers, infertility and neurodevelopment disorders like ADHD and autism."
Oh the irony of listening to this while loading a new roll of filament into my 3D printer....
If you're using PLA filament you shouldn't feel bad, it's a bioplastic made from renewable sources, and while it isn't necessarily biodegradable, it is easily recycled into new filament. In terms of plastics, it's one of the more environmentally friendly options
This reminds me of "The Graduate" with Dustin Hoffman. "One word: Plastics."
One thing a *lot* of people don't realize is that most plastics are petrochemical-based. Even if the whole world switched 100% to electric cars *tomorrow* we would still be hooked on oil for *quite* some time due to this fact.
Excellent episode Sideprojects Team.
Great episode. Could you do one on glass?
I am interested in how cow horns were made into window panes.
Get it soft with hot water cut it and bend it flat. Trim and enjoy.
That is the short version.
You briefly touched on one plastic product that has had an outsized impact probably beyond all others: Celluloid.
I'm not a materials scientist so I might get some of the details wrong but generally here's how the stuff came about.
Celluloid is a semisynthetic plastic made by plasticising plain old cellulose, usually in the form of cotton. One of the ways this is done is by combining the cellulose with nitrogen to create nitrocellulose, which is the very celluloid that the movie/film industry was built upon. It can be transparent or even totally clear, which makes it ideal. Oh, and the source of the nitrogen is nitroglycerine. It means that nitrocellulose is highly inflammable and even explosive under the right conditions, e.g. a confined, sealed space into which the rapidly generated gasses of combustion have nowhere to escape. This is bad for the use and storage of celluloid film and picture negatives but terrific if what you want to do is kill people on an industrial scale.
This is the exact same product that was shredded and used as a projectile propellant in early-modern firearms, known originally as guncotton and then as smokeless gunpowder, this development coming of age in the 1880s in France. Note that when used as a firearms propellant ("gunpowder") it does indeed create a lot less smoke than the traditional potassium nitrate based gunpowder, also known as black powder. But the lack of unsightly smoke is the least of its advantages over traditional gunpowder. The other two features are that smokeless gunpowder leaves very little residue behind after combustion at least as compared to black powder; and that detonating it is far, far more energetic than doing the same with black powder. That had two outsized effects: smokeless powder firearms were vastly more powerful than those burning black powder, and they could be fired repeatedly in extremely high volume, and generated so little residue that rather than gumming up the works of a firearm in just twenty or thirty shots as black powder did, they could be fired thousands of times before the residue rendered them inoperable.
As coincidence would have it, American inventor Hiram Maxim was inventing the very first autoloading, repeating, self-powered firearm in history at around the same time as smokeless powder hit the scene. Maxim would christen his invention the "machine gun." The initial versions actually used black powder cartridges and functioned well enough but were rapidly rendered inoperable after fifty or 100 shots until the weapon could be extensively cleaned. Switching to smokeless powder ammunition was the last puzzle piece to snap into place in the invention of the machinegun.
Result: a semisynthetic plastic made from plant cellulose became part of the technology that caused men to be slaughtered in their hundreds of thousands, on an apocalyptic and nightmarish scale unprecedented in world history in the aptly-named Great War (WW1). When you also factor in that nearly every rifle carried by every soldier, as well as much or most of the artillery used in the conflict also used nitrocellulose as a propellant, well you could say that the invention had a hand in the vast majority of casualties in the war.
Since some variation on the Maxim machinegun was used by every combatant on both sides in the war save only the land of Maxim's birth (the USA), after the war some journalist made the statement that the Great War was actually won "by a quiet country gentleman living in Kent" (Maxim.) But the slaughter committed with Maxim's monster baby would not have been possible were it not for plain old celluloid, nitrocellulose, gun cotton.
Not many inventions about which you can claim are largely responsible for the deaths of literally millions. It's a big result for an invention of such mundane origins. About the only other invention that even remotely falls into the same category was Alfred Nobel's invention Dynamite, the first practical -- which is to say relatively safe to store and use -- high explosive and coincidentally also a nitroglycerine-based invention. It, and variations on it were in almost every single artillery warhead fired off during the Great War, and artillery killed more soldiers than even bullets did. For his part Nobel was so horrified that butchery was to be his legacy for all time that he used a bunch of money to found and fund the Nobel prizes, including the legendary Peace Prize, a continuing guilt-trip that one hopes has had some practical and positive real-world effects since it came into existence.
Maxim had no such misgivings. He was an inventor, plain and simple, and one so brilliant that Thomas Edison paid him off big to move himself to the UK so as to avoid denting Edison's overblown ego and reputation as American wunderkind inventor No. 1. By all reports Maxim happily tinkered and invented until the end of his life.
It would be awesome to see you do an episode on ossuaries. Some of them are legit gorgeous works of art.
Holy crap, I just googled ossuaries. I didn't when I woke up, but I think I now want to see a room full of human bones. So... thanks for that, I guess 😅.
I can't pinpoint it but I bet he's covered one or two on the Geo or TIFO channels.
Much like the philosopher that said once all is discovered there will be less and less to discover we are on the cusp of a truly modern era we are discovering the by products of materialism
And yet, it's not us end consumers that are the biggest problem-user of plastics, it's industry and commerce that are obscene users, and often very irresponsible in the ways they dispose of it...
so just ban more straws problem solved right
Plastics biggest problem is that it's a material we tend to use littlest time, and it last the longest.
I’m sure that had plastic not been developed, most everything that is now made from plastic, would be made with something like wood pulp and plant or animal based glue.
Whales, mostly.
A finnish group of researchers recently demonstrated the paper they had created. It can replace the see-through plastic in food item packages.
Interestingly enough, when you season your cast-iron pan by frying grease, you create polymer layers.
One thing missing from this video was a discussion about micro plastics that are being found everywhere, inside human bodies and even inside little babies. As far as in the ice at the poles. And we don't know what those micro-sized plastic pieces can do in bodies. We simply have no idea how to research and observe the effects. It could just as well be a cause for epidemics in recent decades like IBS and cancers, and whatnot.
Hemp.
Bamboo.
Absolutely take it for granted. If you don’t like it, than stop using it.
Thanks for that revelation.
Your mumbling made a line sound like, "a material like my mother, it's strength relative to it's weight makes it invaluable in industrial sectors." 2:00
He clearly says a material like no other?
@@epixtille7069 Yes he does
What kills me is that our inability to appropriately dispose of plastics is so prolific that when Simon mentioned the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the writers didn't feel the need to elaborate as to what it was; it's as though things have gotten so bad, they automatically assumed the viewer would already knew what it was.
How sad it is, that this is what the world has come to? That this is our legacy? 😔
I've become more optimistic in recent years whenever I see articles that come out saying that they've found new ways to break down plastics using various methods other than melting them down, which produces a lot of carbon into the environment- but in what reality are we talking would they'd be able to produce it and distribute it into the hands of communities across the world? And what would the timeline look like? How much would it cost? There are numerous ways that scientists are working on right now, so who's to say if there could end up being a standard or if we'll have more than one option down the road? So, yeah. It's comforting to see that the technology is possible, but I'm skeptical as to how the execution will pan out. :/
The problem with plastics: 1) Industrial production of plastics, especially single-use, 2) Unchecked consumer culture, 3) Recycling confusion--and subterfuge. That said, plastic-reliant businesses certainly can't be counted on to check themselves, so the onus may fall on us consumers to try to keep plastics out of the waste stream. But how can we do that in a meaningful way? We don't have the power of industry behind us. We're just random singular entities.
So you know like the bronze age, maybe in the future they will call it the plastic age
Was the glass used in bottles for drinks harmful to the environment?
Not directly. Glass is chemically stable and inert with no environmental impact beyond occupying space. Indirectly glass used about 8x more fuel to transport than glass.
The trade off there is that the mass adoption of plastics resulted in several orders of magnitude more petroleum being used than the what was saved by the weight reduction from switching to plastic.
As I recall, soft drink glass bottles had a deposit. Virtually all of the bottles were returned to the place of purchase, then washed and reused. The PET plastic now used for most soft drinks can only be recycled 10 times to create the same quality plastic, however its recycling rate in North America is around 35%. Glass and aluminum are two of the most easily recycled materials that produce the exact same product. Plastics by their nature are almost always far cheaper to produce from "virgin feedstock" (petrochemicals) than recycled stock.
Remember the "Great Oxidation Event?"
Just wait till some bacteria evolves to efficiently eat plastic and shjt cyanide or phosphine gas or something. That'll fix the plastic problem.
A permanent fix huh
The big problem with recicling is that it's not as financialy rewarding as recicling other materials like metal. If that aspect would be tackled than pollution would be much smaller. A good thing is that biodegradable plastic has been implemented in a lot of industries.
Creating plastic was a side project. Cleaning it up will be a mega one.
In the 60s, most of what we used was glass, steel, and paper. There was some plastic, but not like now
There is also Rubber, a great mistake :)
@@valar_euphoriants5898 well it's a joke because it was an accident that led to its discovery. Hence a great mistake see?
Unlike plastic, that video was a bit weak is substance and duration
Great job it would be awesome to have another chanel about influential inventions.
Fun fact the Roman's had a material referred to as *bendable glass* whether it was a strange form of glass or a simple plastic or rubber or what we dont know
But NOW I hear that the entire switch to reusable 'cloth, etc' shopping bags is JUST as bad for the environment as single use plastic bags, once you consider ALL of the elements involved? From pollution caused by the initial production of 'reusable' bags, which tend to suffer damage and frequently need to be replaced nearly as often as if people just REUSED the 'old' 'single use' plastic bags a few times.. To the 'energy' expended to simply first INTRODUCE and MANAGE the change...
Yeah cotton is heavy on the environment. There are multi-use plastic bags that are made of thicker material than single-use plastic bags
@@winblasers2 They’re thicker, but not more durable. The lifespan of a cotton bag is measured in years. High durability bag lifespans are measured in hours.
@@StoneInMySandal That's interesting. I'd say thicker plastic bags are definitely more durable than single-use ones, single-use ones get slashed and stretch too easily
Frank Zappa was warning about plastic people back in the 1960's- 1970's.
Recently a plastic shopping bag was found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the lowest part of the earths oceans. The real problem occurs when plastic breaks down to microscopic particles that are then ingested by all sorts of animals.
We will undoubtedly utilize plastic to ultimately solve our plastic problems.
.👍🎁🎁🎁⤴️
Now we need one dedicated to cleaning the stuff up
Hemp (no, not marijuana) resins can be made into any plastic product or blended with other polymers and is biodegradable and compostable. Since it comes from a plant, it is also more nature friendly than petroleum based plastic products.
there still is a basically unlimited supply of oil for plastics, especially if we stop burning it, and learn to effectively recycle it.
I like this guy. Amusing.
Whoever is reading this, i pray that whatever you’re going through gets better and whatever you’re struggling with or worrying about is going to be fine and that everyone has a fantastic day! Amen
That was great timing. Thank you
Gaaaaaaaay
@@samhullett7207 maybe great for you, but PERFECT for me! Thank you
Thanks, i needed this.
Thank you.
'The tusks that fought in mighty brawls/
Of mastodons are billiard balls.'
Plastic - inevitable miracle….now, how can we improve on plastic?
That’s how humans succeed, fixing what the broke…
Could we give "Tupperware" a pass on this one? I just adore my Tupperware. \m/
Plastic is not good for heating things in the microwave. Chemicals can leach into the food. Foods like tomato sauce can stain the container. Accidently heat too long and a plastic container could melt, produce toxic smoke or catch fire. Better to use glass or ceramic containers to heat things in a microwave.
@@robertvirginiabeach Sigh. Of course you are correct, rvb. I've just had this "Tupperware Fetish" ever since I was just wee! Maybe I just related it to the famous "Tupperware Partys" Thanks for the tip.:)
I was eating cereal out of a Tupperware bowl while watching this! Probably been using that same bowl for 30+ years . Actually as far back as I can remember. It’s part of a set my Mom owned back in the day. It’s been a heck of a bowl. Tupperware is good stuff! Not all heirlooms are made of fine china.
You completely left out the harmful health (carcinogenic--cancer-causing) effects of plastics on people and animals. (Can't post link to Endocrine organization website because comment keeps getting deleted.)
0:55 how it works
2:18 history
6:23 impact
I think anything we used glass, stone, or metal for in the past should still have plastic as an option. But pack in the day, no one was using glass, stone, or metal for DISPOSABLE goods. Bags as a primary. We have used metal for utensils, but those utensils were not disposable. Plastic can be wonderfully durable, and lightweight, but those features are best suited for things you intend to keep and use for decades, not just for a single lunch break.
First thing we can do is stop making plastic things "thinner and lighter". That means when my laptop, tablet, or phone battery wears out, I'll have to throw them away and get something new. Rather than replace the battery and continue using it for twice as long. Of course, Apple and Google are making their OS more bloated, so I won't want to keep it, so I can have the latest version of the software.
Who was the ecologist that said in the 60s, if we don't fix it now we won't be able to. What did people do? They waited until they saw the damage! Too late!
I hope this material will no longer adversly effect the environment in the foreseeable future 👌
It definitely will though.
Twinbrook Creameries in Lynden WA sells Milk, Strawberry milk, incomprehensibly delicious Chocolate milk in glass bottles.
Half Pint, one pint and half gallon.
$2.00 bottle deposit, worth every penny.
Available at most Safeways.
The most horrifying thing humans could find on the surface of Mars would be microplastics
It’s the same issue of removing the gas/petrol use for cars, heating, etc There’s a lot of catching up to do.
Again, I repeat…plastic was inevitable. The NEED and USES are just soooooo widespread. We couldn’t progress without it. Yes, it is covering our planet, and we’ve been playing with it since babies (toys)….we now have to find a way to fix our problem…our inevitable problem.
Plastic eating meal worms are being used in the UK, they eat single use plastic, very cool!
One word Simon: plastics. 😁
I kept waiting for you to drop the classic scene from the film The Graduate: "Just one word... plastics."
th-cam.com/video/eMtLdE5Zq-8/w-d-xo.html
1:02 When I heard this line, I thought of another movie quote: in Star Trek 4 (the one with the whales), Scotty says to the 1986-engineer “I understand you're still working with polymers”; the engineer then replies, “Still!? What else would I be working with?”
That's without a doubt. the creation of disposable commodities is the worst of the modern world
Glasses lenses are also made of plastic. Usually acrylic or polycarbonate
I kind of like natures limitations but also plastic is incredibly useful.
Most all ocean plastic pollution comes from southeastern asia
Only because they have pretty much all their population centers on the coast or on rivers. In terms of total plastic waste per capita, the US ranks first, followed by the UK, South Korea, and Germany, but thankfully most of that doesnt flow into the ocean. Although it still harms the environment when it gets incinerated or tossed on a dump of course.
I'm a little disappointed to see Simon fall for the same "water vapor rising from a nuclear plant cooling tower = pollution" trope that is so common to see in environmental videos.
You can't watch this video without plastics.
The plastic recycling programs are a joke this stuff cannot be recycled not without making more
Very nice 👍 invocation needs lillte inprovemnt in hermone disrupting asoect of kther wise great discovery
My husband was on dialysis for three years and recently had a kidney transplant. Plastic made this possible.
We need to delineate between plastic and single use plastic. Plastic is not inherently bad but our rampant consumption of single use plastics is bad.
The only two plastics that I think are important are polycarbonate and Teflon.
I don't believe I have heard Simon spout this many clichés in so short a time before.
A number of non edible mushrooms have been discovered that consume plastic
Can we get a Geographics video on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch please?
I hope those plastic eating animals do end up being our savior…but…
I wonder what will happen when there are so many of those little plastic animals that THEY themselves evolve to eating the containment cement and so on…..until it’s become the “grey goo”
my only slight gripe here, would be that the inbetween screen's music is a bit loud compared to the talking parts. tried to sleep, while this was playing and the louder parts kinda made me jump each time lol
We wouldn't have lithium ion batteries without plastic
Burn the plastic in a chamber where you can pipe the volatile through distillation towers, let the CO2 feed plants break down the other volitales via more burning.