Plastic and the environment and what you think you know. A discussion about science which honestly misses the mark but a useful discussion. Understanding the good is just as important to the bad

The first fully synthetic plastic was developed in 1907. What they needed was an electrical insulator. Thanks to alternating current (covered in season 1 too with Nikola tesla!) electricity was being wired to new places creating a problem of how to insulate these wires. With that success companies began to research and explore what other plastics could be made. WW II created more demand for synthetic substitutes. Resources were scarce. Needed things at scale. Plastic could do that.

Shortly after WWII, some thought of plastic and created an almost utopian vision of a future with abundant material wealth thanks to an inexpensive, safe, sanitary substance that could be shaped into anything. How disappointed they would be with today… The 1960’s brought about environmentalism with plastic debris starting to collect on beaches, the sea and the environment. The 70’s saw the leaded gasoline come to final phase out plan, CFC’s were next. But plastic stayed. There has been some regulatory push particularly more recently.

Outside of the intro and outro, I feel I failed at digging into more nuance in the discussion. But it is definitely an interesting discussion. Today's guest has published a book and has made the podcast circuit to bring to light that plastic is not necessarily an enemy.

One of Dr Chirs DeArmett's book can be found for free here :https://plasticsparadox.com/

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