What the word polymer actually covers, why the numbered codes on packaging are not recycling marks, and how eight million tonnes of plastic reach the ocean every year.
Plastic once meant easy to shape. It became the name of a whole category of materials, and these unnatural substances carry unnatural names. Here are the common types and the products they end up in, from baby milk bottles to construction. The largest share of new plastic goes to packaging: 146 million tonnes in 2015, and 141 million tonnes of packaging waste in the same year.
Common polymer families and the products they end up in.
After use, polymers go into one of the bins. Food waste sent to compost sites is often contaminated with plastic, so the sites recruit volunteers to separate it by hand.
Household bins, and the compost site where plastic arrives with food waste.
The triangle with a number in the middle is an identification code, not a promise. The real recycling symbol has no number. According to the EPA, only 8.7% of plastic waste was recycled in 2021, and every year 8 million tons of plastic reach the ocean, where fish, whales and seabirds mistake it for food.
Resin identification codes, and the pathways plastic takes to the ocean.
The materials humans use have kept changing. Synthetic polymer was one answer to scarcity; the next answer may come from organisms that grow instead of being extracted.
Material transitions in human history.
Designers are already testing materials that belong to the ecology: apple leather, pasta straws, starch cutlery, shell composites and mycelium. Biomimicry is how we learn from designs nature has already tested.
Natural materials already on the market.
quote
“These signs with numbers are identification codes. They have nothing to do with recycling.
from the study notes
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