dive

when we visit a store, we will find that most of the packages for items on the racks are made of plastic

polymer category

Plastic originally meant easy to shape, recently became a name for a category of materials called polymer, which is made of long chains of molecules.

If we look into the final products of these polymers, we will find that they almost conquered the racks in our supermarkets.

Polymer products are everywhere from baby milk bottles to constructions.

Because of its purpose, packaging has a high rate of disposal. 141 million tons of plastic packaging was discarded in 2015, more than any other categories.

In addition, textile and consumer product also generate a relatively large amount of plastic waste.

it's hard to say goodbye

After our consumption, we probably put the polymers into one of those cans. Where are they going next?

The food waste sent to the compost sites may not be clean, but contaminated with other trash such as plastic forks, nylon bags and foils.

The sites would recruit volunteers to help separate the contaminations in the food waste to make sure that everything in the pile is compostable.

These signs with numbers in the middle are identification codes. They have nothing to do with recycling. The real recycle sign does not have a number.

The real recycle sign does not have a number in the middle.

These signs with numbers in the middle are identification codes. They have nothing to do with recycling. The real recycle sign does not have a number.

According to EPA, only 8.7% of plastic wastes are recycled in 2021.

Each year, 8 million tons of plastic is going to the ocean.

They are mistakenly eaten by fish, wales, seabirds, entering the food chain.

what's next?

The evolution of materials in human history has continued to move on. Synthetic polymer is the first one that does not engage in the natural ecology, but should not be the last one on the timeline. Maybe it is a time for a sustainable alternative to appear and fix the environmental gray rhino which plastic has caused. So what is the next?

Humans have been discovering new materials in history.

answers from nature

While we are continuously creating problems for the environment, the most effective approaches to tackle them are already design by nature.

Biomimicry is how we may learn and utilize nature’s designs.