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“Welcome to the Plasticene. If you’re under age 70, it’s possible you’ve lived in the Plasticene for your entire life. It’s a new geologic age some scientists have proposed to mark the near-universal spread of plastic around Earth. Since the 1950s, researchers say, we’ve been living in the Age of Plastics.” Kristen Minogue, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.

Geologists have divided the 4.5 billion years of earth’s history into a geologic time scale. These divisions, or “geochronologic units,” include eons, eras, periods, epochs and ages. We live in the Phanerozoic Eon (beginning 541 million years ago), the Cenozoic Era (last 66 million years), the Quaternary Period (last 2.6 million years), Holocene Epoch (last 11,700 years) and the Meghalayan Age (beginning 4,200 years ago).

These divisions in time are not uniform in length. They are based on distinctive characteristics of the earth’s development. For example, the kinds of rocks, fossils, dominant animal and  plant life or significant events, like ice ages or meteor impacts, are used to mark the divisions.    
The Holocene Epoch corresponds to the most recent tilt of the earth’s axis towards the Sun and the resulting end of the Wisconsin Ice Age. It is characterized by the spread of and increased popu-lation growth of Homo sapiens. This epoch includes all of our written history, technological developments and the rise of urban civilizations.

During the Holocene humans have had a significant impact on the earth’s topography. Humans are responsible for widespread deforestation, large scale agriculture, building of massive cites, paving large areas for transportation, altering watersheds with dams and irrigation and massive natural resource extraction and consumption. 

We have altered 95% of the earth’s surface in one or another way and impacted 85% with multiple modifications.

Given these impacts, some scientists have proposed a new epoch – the Anthropocene – to accurately reflect all these changes to the planet’s geology and ecosystems. One suggested start date is the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (circa 1780). 

Plastics are another planet-altering human creation. Synthetic plastic was first invented in 1907. Since the 1950s plastics have become ubiquitous. 

Made mostly from oil or natural gas, plastic production, increase in use, distribution across the planet, and accumulation on land and in the oceans has exploded. Plastics are everywhere, in everything – including our food and bodies – and are being incorporated into sediments, future rocks and the geology of the earth.

Current world production of plastics is 430 million tons annually. This amount has doubled in the last two decades. Plastic production is expected to increase by 40% in the next 10 years. Half of all plastic is used for single-use purposes (39% for packaging). Worldwide only 9% is recycled.

Eighty-six percent of litter collected on Great Lakes beaches is composed of, or contains, plastic. Worldwide 73% of beach litter is plastic. 

If nothing is done about plastic waste it is estimated that by 2050 the amount of plastic, and micro-plastic particles, in the oceans will exceed the amount of fish (by weight).

Because of all this some scientists are suggesting a new geologic age – the Plasticene – as a subdivision of the Anthropocene. Plastics are human made, do not exist in nature and do not completely biodegrade. 
Every bit of plastic ever made is still with us and is impacting the environment and geology of earth. We are living in the Epoch of Humans and the Age of Plastics.

Back in the 1950s, plastics were considered a miracle material and an example of “better living through chemistry.” Products made from plastic products were cheap, versatile, and plastic was better in many ways than using wood, glass and metal. 

But the chemical properties that have made plastic a useful and durable material also has downsides. 
Plastics don’t rot (biodegrade). They can take 20 to 1,000 years to break down and never really decompose into their original components. They do eventually break down into micro-plastic particles, which have known harmful and unknown health and environmental risks. 

Also, because of the many types of plastics, they are not easy to reuse or recycle. 

The most problematic plastics products are polyethylene shopping bags, polystyrene food containers and polyethylene terephthalate (or PET, a form of polyester) drink bottles. About 500 billion PET bottles are sold every year. Cheap plastic products have fueled a single-use, throw-away consumer culture. It is less expensive to make new plastic products than to recycle or reuse them.

There are always downsides and trade-offs to any technological, social, political or economic action. There are always those people with power who will profit from adopting an innovation (or resisting its implementation) who will oppose checking out the pros and cons in advance. Humans are not good at cost-benefit analysis.

So the downsides of plastics were ignored. Like the more than 80,000 chemicals in daily use which have never been adequately tested or nuclear power that was going to be “too cheap to meter” or the internal combustion automobile that promised the “freedom of the open road” or the pesticides and herbicides that delivered  the “green revolution” in agriculture, we blindly “wrote it all down as the progress of man.” 

At least until the cancer, poisoned water, smog filled and traffic-chocked cities smacked us in the face.
There were benefits from the development of plastics as there have been for many other “advancements” in science and technology. But we should also learn from our past mistakes. 

At a minimum we should require new products, chemicals and technologies to be tested for safety prior to mass production. There should be an exit strategy for recycling or dismantling the product. 
The costs of production and deconstruction – “what you take, what you make, and what you waste” in the words of environmentalist Bill McKibbon – should be the responsibility of the producer and not society as whole. 

Dealing with the problems of plastics, like all our other problems, is a political issue. Back in 2021, and again in 2023, legislation (the Break Free From Plastics Act) was introduced to reduce the negative impacts of plastic pollution and waste. Learn more about these efforts at “Break free from Plastics” (breakfreefromplastic.org ), the “Plastic Pollution Coalition” (plasticpollutioncoalition.org) and “Beyond Plastics” (beyondplastics.org/bffppa).