- Plastic Planet: The Promise and Perils of Polymers

Catalog description

An examination of the variety of modern plastics, their basic chemical and physical properties, and the scale of society’s dependence on them. From this foundation, we will analyze impacts to public health and ecosystem functioning, along with policies that regulate plastics and the bioplastics that might provide more sustainable alternatives. Plastics are present in every facet of our lives, and their contributions to advances in medicine, transportation, construction, and electronics have provided huge societal benefits. Those benefits come at a cost, however; plastics derive from limited fossil fuels, leach toxic chemicals, litter our landscapes, and imperil marine life. How have plastics come to dominate our lives, and what are the human health and ecosystem effects of this domination?