Plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental issues: the production of disposable plastic items is overwhelming our ability to manage them.
Plastics made from fossil fuels are over a century old. The production and development of thousands of new plastic products accelerated after World War II, transforming the modern age so profoundly that, today, life without plastics would be unrecognizable.
Plastics have revolutionized medicine with life-saving devices; made cars and jets lighter, saving fuel and polluting less; saved lives with helmets, incubators and equipment to make water drinkable.
The conveniences offered by plastics, however, have led to a throwaway culture that reveals the dark side of this material: today, single-use plastics make up 40 % of all plastics produced each year.
During Covid-19 emergency it seemed that nature woke up. People were forced to stay locked inside their houses, and we often saw nature emerge. Numerous videos of animals that hadn’t been seen for years in parks and even in cities, but did this emergency really change amount of pollution in a positive way?
Unfortunately, no, despite the closure we managed to pollute more, masks and gloves made of plastic and other fabrics were used in incredible numbers, their production increased but so did pollution. Now we have so many videos and pictures coming in from all over the world with animals trapped or dead because of the gloves and masks.