Plastics: The Ultimate Cautionary Tale

Almost any technological solution to any one of humanity's problems causes some unintended consequence, or some new problem. Widespread use of plastic is one of the better examples. It seemed innocuous, but was actually a pretty major problem.

Plastic has several properties that make it a good replacement for metal, wood, or glass in many applications. It's potentially lighter weight, for example, and it's potentially less energy intensive to fabricate than glass or metal. As a consequence, it replaced glass and metal in many food container applications.

Of course, the problem with plastic is it's a pollutant, because it's really an alien chemical on earth. Metals like steel and even aluminum will eventually break down into their constituent components, plus they can easily be perfectly recycled. Glass is basically just sand and is mostly harmless. Plastic seems like it will only break down over a very long time span, and in the meantime it ends up in the ocean where it harms animals.

Mass use of plastic as a building and container material is pretty recent. It's really only a phenomenon of the last 50 or so years. In less than one human lifetime, a huge pile of plastic garbage ended up in the ocean. It'll take way more time and energy to clean up that mess than was saved by substituting plastic for glass and metal.

It seems like almost every technological solution to a problem is like that. Mass adoption of electric vehicles, for example, would end up causing its own particular set of pollution and problems too, just like "green" energy technology will.