Prof. Brian J. Ford talks about Plastic Pollution in Bullaki Science Podcast. "Plastic is a single substance that underpins society. If we hadn’t any plastic, we wouldn’t have any civilization. Paper is bad news. Paper takes a long, long, time to biodegrade and eventually it does biodegrade thereby adding to the carbon dioxide burden. The problem with plastic (and microplastic) is that people put it in the ocean." Full podcast with Prof. Brian J. Ford: [ Ссылка ]

Brian J Ford is a well-respected research scientist, BBC broadcaster, world-wide lecturer and author with books out in over 140 editions. His original Nonscience dates from 1971, and caused a sensation. It was translated, featured on television, and enthusiastically reviewed. To celebrate its fiftieth birthday has been expanded, with loads of amusing new pictures and amusing information (on topics including covid-19). It is available here: [ Ссылка ].

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Brian J. Ford. I love the anti-plastics movement. Plastic is a single substance that underpins society. If we hadn’t any plastic, we wouldn’t have any civilization. Our computers, cars, hospitals, factories, chairs, homes, everything relies on plastic. Plastic is a good guy and not a bad one. Plastic is made as a side product of the petrochemicals industry.
What everybody’s talking about now however, and I’ve discussed it in my book, is replacing plastic with paper. So if you go to the supermarket you won’t have those nasty plastic bags. You’ll have nice paper ones. Now, the amount of energy in producing paper and the amount of pollution produced by paper manufacturer is far greater than plastic.
Paper is bad news. Not only that, but paper takes a long, long, time to biodegrade and eventually it does biodegrade thereby adding to the carbon dioxide burden.

Plastic doesn’t biodegrade and we all think “Oh isn’t it terrible? Let’s try and make plastic biodegradable”. Believe me if you discovered a fungus or a bacterium that could degrade plastic it would mean the end of society. Every water pipe, every gas pipe, every piece of electrical insulation would all break down and we will be stuck without any way of continuing our civilized life. Plastic is vital for life. The fact that plastic doesn’t degrade it is greatest benefit, it’s not a problem. When you bury plastic water pipes in the ground, they will stay there for a very, very long time. Make them out of anything else, like iron and within a century or two they’re beginning to leak. Plastic is vital and the fact that it doesn’t biodegrade means that it doesn’t break down and produce slimy waste and it doesn’t pollute the atmosphere with more carbon dioxide.

I’ve explained in my book that you can make buildings and roads with plastic and it’s far better to do that than it is to decimate the landscape and explode our beautiful hills in order to get out lumps of limestone that you then grind up into aggregate and use to make concrete. That despoils the landscape and consumes a lot of energy.

Grinding up waste plastic and using it instead conserves the landscape does away with any pollution and allows you to construct things that otherwise you couldn’t construct so cheaply.

There is only one problem with plastic. It is not the fact that plastic is inherently bad, it is that people throw plastic into the environment. The reason it’s in the ocean is because people put it there. The little granules, the little knurdles of plastic that you find, they have been dangerously and casually spilled by the industry. But most of the danger in plastic is from ropes and nets and they have been thrown there by the people who depend on the ocean for their lives. They have been discarded and rejected there by the fisher folks themselves. The other great damage is of course plastic bags floating around the ocean that cause an incredible problem for creatures. For example those that feed on jellyfish very frequently think the plastic bags are jellyfish and eat those instead. But that’s because some idiot threw it there. We used to, centuries ago, crap in the streets and now we don’t do that, unless it’s very late at night and all the night clubs and pubs are closed. But we learned not to drop our crap in the streets. When people stop polluting the plastic problem goes away. It is careless people, who cause the plastic in the ocean, not the plastic itself.

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