How bad is plastic?

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Correction to what I say at 9 mins 5 seconds and at 9 minutes 40 seconds: The carboniferous lasted (approximately) from 360 to 300 million years ago and was 60 million years long. (Not from 360 to 60 and 300 million years long.) Sorry about that.

Plastic is everywhere and we have all heard it's bad for the environment. But how bad is it really? In this video I explain that no one really knows how durable plastic is, that microplastics are everywhere, most bioplastics aren't bio-degradable, and that you can make steel from plastic. Yes, steel.

The report about online information on plastic lifetime I mention at 2 mins 58 seconds is here:

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/117/26/14618.full.pdf

The paper about degradation of polystyrene I mention at 4 mins 30 seconds is here:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.9b00532

The paper about bacteria on microparticles which I mention at 7 mins 30 seconds is here:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31445309/

The 2016 paper about bacteria that digest plastic which I mention at 10 mins is here:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aad6359

The paper about PETase I mention at 11 mins 5 seconds is this:

https://www.pnas.org/content/115/19/E4350

And the one I mention right after that at 11 mins 20 seconds is this:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1096717621000471

The review on non-biodegradable bioplastics that I mention at 13 mins 08 is here:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652621004388

The one on life-cycles of biodegradable plastics which I mention at 14 mins 9 seconds his this:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es504258u

And finally, the paper in Nature Catalysis about making steel from plastic I mention at 15 mins 49 seconds is here:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41929-020-00518-5

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Many thanks to Jordi Busqué for helping with this video http://jordibusque.com/

0:00 Intro 0:31 Sponsor Message 1:22 What is plastic? 2:46 How long does plastic last? 4:49 Why worry about plastic? 8:50 Bacteria that digest plastic 12:34 Are bioplastics any good? 15:36 Steel from plastic

#science #environment