Human-made plastics are super useful -- they're lightweight, can be molded into anything, and they don’t break down. And because plastic is so versatile, we humans have found lots of uses for it. But the fact that it lasts forever means we find ourselves with a plastic problem. In this episode, we'll learn about the invention of plastic, how it's made and recycled and what you can do to help handle plastic waste. Plus: A very special appearance by Gungador, a tricky mystery sound and a Moment of Um that answers the question: "How do glow in the dark things glow?"
One thing you can do now to help with plastic pollution is use Jenna Jambeck's Marine Debris Tracker to report where you're finding plastic in the environment.
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GABBY: You're listening to Brains On, where we're serious about being curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CREW: Brains On is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
GABBY: Molly, have you noticed how plastic is everywhere?
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, but I've got my reusable water bottle here for the taping, so yay for me.
GABBY: But that water bottle is also made of plastic.
MOLLY BLOOM: Well, yeah, but dishwasher safe.
GABBY: That dishwasher has a lot of plastic in it.
MOLLY BLOOM: True.
GABBY: Your glasses are made of plastic.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, yeah.
GABBY: Those cute earrings you're wearing? Plastic, too. And that microphone? Lots of plastic there. Most of that chair you're sitting in, too. The fleece jacket on the back of your chair? Yeah, that's plastic. And look at the light switch, and your tennis shoes, this carpet-- also made of plastic.
MOLLY BLOOM: Holy synthetic polymers, Batman.
GABBY: Yeah, everywhere.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In my watch, in my barrette, most of my backpack, lots of parts of my mom's car, my toothbrush, the toothpaste tube, dental floss.
MOLLY BLOOM: You're listening to Brains On for American Public Media. I'm Molly Bloom and I'm here today with Gabby, from Guelph, Ontario. Hi, Gabby.
GABBY: Hi.
MOLLY BLOOM: Today, we're talking plastic. It's pretty much all around us.
GABBY: Because it's good at lots of stuff.
MOLLY BLOOM: A lot of Brains On listeners wondered about this wild material.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- How is plastic made?
- How is oil used to make plastic?
- How is plastic made?
- Plastic is not flammable but it's made out of oil, which is flammable. How come?
- What is plastic made out of?
- I know my clothes are made from it, and it can melt, but I don't know what it is.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: We got those questions from Cecilia, Teddy, and Gus, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Oakley, from Nova Scotia, Canada, Adeline, and Noah, from Austin, Texas, Sam, from Rockville, Maryland, Delia, and Heidi, from Canberra, Australia, and Oliver, from East Lansing, Michigan. They are excellent questions. So let's get right down to it. Plastic is moldable and lightweight.
GABBY: And it doesn't disintegrate, so it lasts and lasts.
MOLLY BLOOM: Which means getting rid of it can be tricky, but we'll get to that in a bit.
GABBY: First off, we're diving into where this material came from.
MOLLY BLOOM: For most of human history, people didn't have the kinds of plastic we use today.
GABBY: They made things out of natural materials, like stone, horns, or bones.
MOLLY BLOOM: Or glass, metal, or clay.
GABBY: Human made plastics are pretty different from all of those materials. But technically, some of those materials are natural plastics.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. What plastic materials, or polymers, all have in common is that if you zoom way, way in--
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Zoom, zoom. Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: You'd see a bunch of different chains of tiny, plastic bits.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Hello. Hi, oh, looks like I'm caught in your--
- Oh, boy, I'm twisted up like a pretzel.
- Oh yeah, I seem to be stuck.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: All the chains swirl in different directions and stick together in some places. Think of a bird's nest or cold spaghetti.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Oh, am I stepping on you?
- If I can just get this [INAUDIBLE]
- I give up. This is a mess.
- Well, this is where I'm staying I guess.
[END PLAYBACK]
GABBY: The chains are where polymers get their name.
MOLLY BLOOM: "Poly" means many, and "mers" are units-- many units.
GABBY: There are plenty of natural materials made of tiny chains. They're polymers, too, like hair or even DNA.
MOLLY BLOOM: Rubber is another good example of a natural plastic. It comes from rubber trees.
GABBY: And people in Mexico and Central America were using rubber to make balls thousands of years ago.
MOLLY BLOOM: But there are problems with natural materials. For starters, you can run out of them. So eventually, people started looking for other stuff to make things out of.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Yoo-hoo, don't mean to interrupt-- name's John Wesley Hyatt-- but I have just the tale for you. Care to join me in the parlor for a game of billiards?
GABBY: Billiards?
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: You know, it's a game. You play on a table. You hit the billiard balls with spindly sticks.
GABBY: - Oh, you're talking about pool. Sure, I'd love to play.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Great.
[RACKING BALLS]
These billiard balls are where our plastic story begins. Ah, I'm solid. Y'all are stripes. First of all, these modern-day billiard balls are plastic.
MOLLY BLOOM: Ooh, Gabby, you've got a good angle on that first shot. I'll go next.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: But in my day, in the 1860s, the finest billiard balls were made of elephant's tusks, which is called ivory.
GABBY: That sounds pretty bad for the elephants.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Yes, especially because the game of billiards was sure some pumpkins. It was more popular than sarsaparilla.
MOLLY BLOOM: Is that good?
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Well, of course. People were buying so many billiard balls we started to worry we might run out of elephants-- er, ivory. So one company decides it needs a new way to make these balls.
CREW: Reward! Anyone who can find a suitable substitute for ivory, we'll give you $10,000 in gold.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: That gets my attention. I'm no chemist, mind you. I started out as a printer, in New York. But I did invent a knife sharpener as a young man. So hey, why not tackle inventing a new material?
MOLLY BLOOM: And what material are you working with at this point?
[BALLS CLACKING]
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Ooh, nice shot. I start with gun cotton. It's a mix of lab chemicals and cotton. People used to use it as gunpowder but I have a hunch it'll work as a pool ball, too. Eh? You see, gun cotton sort of melts when it's hot so I can shape the balls. And then it hardens as it cools. Gun cotton does light on fire pretty easily, but I throw my eyebrows to the wind and tinker in my shed.
GABBY: Your eyebrows look pretty good now.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Well, thanks. They grew back, eventually. So anyway, after a few years, I have a pretty good ivory substitute. It's moldable, it's water resistant, and it hardens. My brother, Isaiah, helps me name it.
ISAIAH HYATT: John, you should call it celluloid, because, you know, the cotton fibers are mainly cellulose. Then you add the "oid," which is totally fun to add to any word. You know-- catoid, tableoid, celluloid-- how could you call it anything else?
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Celluloid it is! Yes. I should say, other people made mixtures like mine before. What's special about my celluloid is the way I made it. I kept my molding process as simple as possible, so it's easy to make a lot of different things out of celluloid. That's how I started my business-- the Celluloid Manufacturing Company.
CREW: Celluloid, get your celluloid here.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: My celluloid billiard balls work pretty well. But they do have one, tiny problem.
CREW: It's a wonder of a material, as beautiful as ivory, and it comes in any color you like, so stock up and--
[FLAMES CRACKLING]
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: The balls are still flammable and just a teeny bit explosive. Well, they sometimes make a really loud cracking sound during games.
[BALLS CLACKING]
So I never get my prize money.
CREW: Read the fine print-- prize money for good substitutes only.
MOLLY BLOOM: Bummer.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: A little. But like lots of inventions, celluloid ends up being useful in other ways. It's easy to make into different shapes so my brother and I make plastic for all kinds of things, like eyeglass frames, piano keys, and combs.
ISAIAH HYATT: So you can see your sheet music clearly, as you play a song, with a perfect part in your hair.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: [LAUGHS] Now, fragile objects run less risk of exploding than billiard balls. They get smacked around less. Yeah? Later, people also use celluloid to make film for photographs and movies.
[BALLS CLACKING]
Oh, drat. There goes the eight ball. You're the winners.
GABBY: Celluloid was still pretty flammable, though, wasn't it?
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Definitely. But people make even more new plastics after that, materials that were less flammable and easier to work with. Soon, no one was starting with cotton or rubber at all. Plastic nowadays-- I mean, in the present day-- tends to come from crude oil-- natural gas.
MOLLY BLOOM: Wow. Thank you, John, and good try on the billiard ball substitute, and good game.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Yes. Join me in the parlor any time. I'd love to tell you the story of my knife sharpener invention, too.
GABBY: Maybe later.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
See you.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Brains, brains, brains.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: So like John mentioned, even though celluloid wasn't a perfect ivory replacement, it showed people how useful it could be to replace a natural material. So over the next 100 years or so, people came up with even better recipes for different plastics. And they invented better machines to mold plastic products. Since then, plastic has made so many things possible.
GABBY: Think about plastic gloves and sealed sterile tools at the doctor's office. Plastic has made medicine cleaner and safer. It's also made many life saving medical devices possible.
[HISSING]
MOLLY BLOOM: Plastic parts make airplanes and cars lighter, so they go farther on less fuel.
[HONKING]
GABBY: Without plastic, even computers would be harder to make, and way more expensive.
[CLACKING]
MOLLY BLOOM: And that's only a few of the ways plastic has changed the world. It's had such an impact, we thought it deserved a song.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Ivory was really running low. Hyatt tried celluloid, hoped it wouldn't explode. In World Wars, soldiers needed more. Plane windshields, parachutes, records-- polymers were really on a road. So many ways to make them-- extruder or injection mold.
So many plastics, from big to small. I don't think I can name them all, but I'll try. Here we go. Celluloid is used in movies. Bakelite can make a bracelet right. Nylon will stretch with the best. For transparency, use Plexiglas. Poly ether ether ketone helps turn cars into fast machines. Ethylene vinyl acetate, it's in pool noodles and soccer cleats. Polyvinyl [INAUDIBLE] chloride, better known as PVC. Synthetic rubber, oh my, in wetsuits is called neoprene.
So many plastics all around us. So well made, they won't biodegrade. Can you name all the plastics? Or can you make a plastic that fades? Well, can you make a plastic that fades? Well, can you make a plastic that fades?
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: So there are a lot of different kinds of plastics and they're not all made in exactly the same way, but here are the basics. Crude oil and natural gas are broken down into ethane and propane. Many of those molecules in a chain are called a polymer.
And remember how we talked about polymers before? Well, those polymers are then mixed with all kinds of additives and colors, and they're melted, which transforms them into resins. These resins are cooled down and then cut up into teeny pellets.
These plastic pellets get sent to factories, where they are again melted, and molded, and pulled into all the plastic stuff around us. We're going to hear more about the downside of the plastic making process in a minute. But before we do that, it's time for--
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Mystery sound.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: Gabby, are you ready?
GABBY: Yes.
MOLLY BLOOM: All right, here it is.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[CRINKLING]
[END PLAYBACK]
Any guesses?
GABBY: Um, it kind of sounds like plastic crinkling, like when you squeeze a plastic bottle.
MOLLY BLOOM: Hmm, very good guess. Well, we'll be back with the answer in just a bit.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We're working on an episode about spacesuits right now.
GABBY: You know, those high-tech suits that let astronauts do stuff in the cold, dark void of space.
MOLLY BLOOM: Those suits. And we want to hear about the super suits of your dreams. If you could invent a suit to help you with something here on earth, what would it do? Gabby, what would you want a super suit to help you with?
GABBY: I would want my super suit to help me fly and run around really fast.
MOLLY BLOOM: That would be awesome. What color would your super suit be?
GABBY: Probably purple, or blue, maybe like the galaxy.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, I like it. Well, listeners, send us your super suit ideas at brainson.org/contact. We'll include some of your ideas in that episode.
GABBY: And while you're there at brainson.org/contact, you can send us mystery sounds, drawings, and questions.
MOLLY BLOOM: Like this listener did.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Hi, my name is August. I'm from [INAUDIBLE], Alberta, Canada and my question is how to glow in the dark things glow?
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: We'll be back with the answer during our Moment of Um, at the end of the show, and we'll read the most recent group of listeners to be added to the Brains Honor Roll.
GABBY: And if you keep listening to the very, very end, you'll hear a preview of Smash Boom Best.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's the show where debaters use facts, history, and lore to convince us that their side is smash, boom, best.
GABBY: Whoa, keep listening.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- And now, a public service announcement from Kelly and-- [LAUGHS] what does this say?
- It say [? Gongadoor. ?] [CLEARS THROAT]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- And now, a public service announcement from Kelly and a garage door.
- What? No, it-- oh, hi, Brains On listeners. It me, [? Gongadoor. ?]
- And I'm Kelly.
- We partners in school project.
[CHIME]
- The teacher made me work with him.
- Before, I was mightiest monster fighter in land. Now I fight new enemy-- single use plastics.
[WOBBLY NOISE]
Hi-yah! We make video to teach you to fight plastic, too.
- And also because we want extra credit.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- One way to fight plastic is to punch it.
- Uh, did you actually do the research, [? Gangadoor? ?]
- Of course. I researched many fighting moves. You can also swizzle kick plastic-- pow!
- We're not literally fighting plastic. We're explaining how to reduce your plastic use.
- Uh, reduce?
- Yeah, like trying to bring a reusable water bottle to school, so you can skip buying water bottles that you'll only use once and then get rid of them.
- Wow, smart idea.
- Or you can bring your lunch in a Mason jar or a reusable container, instead of plastic bags, or even challenge your friends to a litterless lunch, where the goal is eating a meal without creating any garbage at all.
- Or you can, uh, find plastic trash and, uh,
- And re--
- Report it to the plastic police!
[SIREN]
Get em, plastic officer!
- No, no. Recy--
- Resize it, so it's smaller plastic now. Take that, tiny plastic.
- No, recycle it. Put it in the recycling bin.
- Oh, wow. That much better plan.
- Uh, they said this would be an easy A.
- This has been a public service announcement from Kelly and a garage door.
- Gangadoor!
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
GABBY: You're listening to Brains On, from American Public Media. I'm Gabby.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I'm Molly. And today, we're talking plastic. Let's go back to that mystery sound again. Here it is.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[CRACKLING]
[END PLAYBACK]
All right, last time you thought it was a water bottle being crinkled.
GABBY: Mhm.
MOLLY BLOOM: Do you have any new thoughts? You want to stick with that?
GABBY: Um, I still think it has something to do with that.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK, well, here is the answer.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Hello. My name is Evan. And the sound you just heard was me squashing an empty water bottle.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: You were 100% correct. Nicely done. You have very good ears.
GABBY: Thank you.
CREW: Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, Brains On.
MOLLY BLOOM: So like we just talked about, plastic has a lot of useful qualities, which is why we use it in, like, everything.
GABBY: Yeah, it's everywhere, because it's lightweight and doesn't break easily, can be molded into pretty much any shape, and lasts forever.
MOLLY BLOOM: So if it lasts forever, how do we get rid of it? Brains On listeners had a lot of questions about that too.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- How does recycling work?
- How can we keep plastic from getting into our environment?
- I'm interested in plastic because it makes up a lot of stuff in our house.
- Why does plastic take so long to decompose?
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: High five to Charlie and Harper, from Los Angeles, Cathy, from Goshen, Indiana, Nathan, from High Point, North Carolina, and Emmylou, from Sydney, Australia for their questions. In the end, what makes plastic very useful also makes it problematic.
GABBY: Once we make plastic, we're stuck with it. Paper, or metal, or glass, or food-- those will all naturally break down over time.
MOLLY BLOOM: Food will break down faster than paper, but they'll both biodegrade.
GABBY: Biodegrading means that air, water, sunlight, and microbes can break the materials into smaller and smaller pieces.
MOLLY BLOOM: Eventually, little pieces of those materials-- their molecules-- become part of the environment again.
GABBY: Bacteria and other microbes, like fungi, play a big part in that process. They can eat and digest natural materials.
MOLLY BLOOM: So why does plastic just sit there? We asked someone who studies how bacteria break things down.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Hello my name's Jose [? Liget. ?]
[END PLAYBACK]
GABBY: Jose took us on a quick trip to the Tasty Waste Buffet, where bacteria and fungi go to get their fill of the trash we toss.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Golly, I just love that this place brings the waste to us. We bacteria have needed something like this for a long time.
- I know. Let's get started with some paper and plant products.
- Plants have been here for hundreds of millions of years. So these are materials that bacteria just have known for so long that they are prepared to eat them.
- Great idea. Love a good old plate of plant fiber. And I love how Tasty Waste preps everything.
- Yeah, you can really tell that all these materials have been sitting out in nature for a long time. Jose, tell all these nice people what nature does to a material like food or paper.
- The sun will start breaking it down. And then the moisture from the air, rain, everything, like animal stomping on it-- that will start breaking it down.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Mmm, this cardboard-- perfectly rained on, practically falling off the box.
- These potato peels! They must have baked in the sun for weeks!
[CHEWING SOUNDS]
- Mmm, delish, just like it has been for millions of years. What next?
- What's that over there-- a whole new buffet section?
- Play stick-- huh?
- I think it's plastic. Whatever that material is, being out in nature did not affect it.
- The problem is that when you throw away a plastic bag or a plastic bottle, these are so hardy, so they can withstand a lot the sun, they can withstand moisture. So that initial step to start degrading, it takes a long time. It takes a very long time.
- I just-- I don't really even know how I would start eating that.
- Bacteria encounter these materials and they're like, how do I break them? And plastics are made to not be easily broken down.
- I mean, we spent millions of years getting awesome at eating earth materials.
- And this new plastic-- [CHOKING NOISES] Ugh, it's so tough. Seems like a lot of work for not a lot of yum.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Microbes are amazing. We could probably figure out a way to eat this. But it might take a while for us to get really good at it. How much longer is the Tasty Waste Buffet open?
- And so yeah, that's why it's so hard for bacteria to break this down, and fungi, too.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: We figured out how to make plastics so amazing and strong that nature doesn't affect it.
GABBY: And unfortunately, that leaves plastic to affect nature, instead.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Brains on!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- And now, a public service announcement from Kelly and grungy George.
- Heh, Grungy George, you want to start this one?
- [? Gungadoor! ?] What's so hard about that?
- OK, I guess I'll go. So you want to use less plastic, but what if your favorite product comes wrapped in plastic?
- Like these crayons-- they already in box. Why also wrap in plastic?
- Exactly. One thing to try is to look up the company's address and write them a letter.
- Dear Colortastic--
[TYPING]
--Crayons, you have pretty colors, but why not skip plastic wrap?
[DING]
It better for planet.
- If enough people write in, the company might change. You can also seek out similar products that use less plastic, right George?
- I not George. I [? Gunga-- ?] whoops, I dropped the crayons.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- This has been a public service announcement from Kelly and [? Gunga ?] whoops I dropped the crayons.
- Come on, dude.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: So what do we do about all this plastic? Now Gabby, you wrote to us with a really interesting question about plastic. What did you write to us about?
GABBY: I was wondering what happens to the microplastics in our oceans and how they affect us?
MOLLY BLOOM: And how did you get interested in that?
GABBY: At my school we were doing a project-- or I was doing a project on plastic. And I was doing a lot of research, and I was learning about some negative points, but I wanted to learn more. And also, I like the environment so I kind of wanted to know what was happening.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, it's good to know what's going on around you.
GABBY: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: So what would you say is the most interesting thing you learned, that you sort of took away with you, after working on that project?
GABBY: After working on that, I think that the most interesting thing was that there is so much plastic in our world, and how some of it's good and some of it's bad. But just like, it's just kind of everywhere. And so that kind of got me thinking. We need it, but at the same time, do we?
MOLLY BLOOM: Has it led to you making any changes?
GABBY: Yes. I don't drink from plastic water bottles, like, ever.
MOLLY BLOOM: Anything else?
GABBY: Whenever I see plastic on the ground or something, if it's safe of course, then I try to clean it up, or I'll share my ideas with my friends and my family. But one change at a time.
MOLLY BLOOM: So you sort of try to get your friends and family to make some of the changes you've started making?
GABBY: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: What's the most surprising place that you've realized plastic is, that you're like, I did not even think about that.
GABBY: I think I might have been in my own bedroom. Like, all my room decorations were plastic and everything was plastic, even though I was trying to stop using so much plastic.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. You're like, oh, no, look-- my room, covered in plastic.
GABBY: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: Well, I think that's great that you're trying to make some changes. We can all make some little changes.
GABBY: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: We're really lucky, because we have Jenna Jambeck here, to answer our questions.
GABBY: She's an environmental engineer at the University of Georgia. Welcome, Jenna.
JENNA JAMBECK: Thank you. Glad to be here
GABBY: Do you know how much plastic is recycled
JENNA JAMBECK: Globally, the average recycling rate for plastic is about 9%. So less than 10% worldwide. And that actually is the same average within the United States, as well. So we're looking at a pretty small fraction of what we actually generate, in terms of plastic waste, as being able to get recycled.
GABBY: And so how is the plastic that is properly recycled-- how does that happen?
JENNA JAMBECK: It moves from the recycle bin to being washed and shredded. And then it can be remelted and extruded into things that look like these long spaghetti pieces. And then that's cooled and then it's sliced up into these little, tiny pellets, that are the actual resin, that then can get shipped back to manufacturers to remold into other items.
MOLLY BLOOM: Where else does plastic end up besides the garbage can?
JENNA JAMBECK: Hmm. So if it's not properly managed, and that can be sort of in two ways. Before, it would get to the trash cans, if someone litters it, either on purpose or maybe it blows from a picnic or something, then it ends up in our environment, on the land.
And I think what's really important is, people need to understand, how does that then end up in the ocean. And either wind, or when you think about when we have a rainstorm, and the water runs over the land, and drains into our waterways-- whether they be streams, rivers. Those kind of systems, then, can take it to the ocean. Or if you're near the coastline, it can go directly into the ocean there. And that's why we're seeing so much of it ending up in the ocean.
In other areas, they actually don't have waste collection. So I've been a lot of places around the world where there's no bin to put your trash in. And so a lot of those folks have been just putting it in piles and open burning it, or even using the land or waterways as disposal methods.
GABBY: What are microplastics?
JENNA JAMBECK: Plastic does not biodegrade. So it means the carbon in it is not taken up by microbes as food. And so instead of actually breaking down that way, it fragments into smaller and smaller pieces. Microplastics are about the size of a pencil eraser or smaller. And so over time, the plastic fragments and these pieces are what we end up finding in the environment.
GABBY: Oh. And how do they affect us, like, if they're so small, sometimes?
JENNA JAMBECK: So we know that microplastic is being consumed by even the tiniest creatures in the food web. And the food web, also humans participate in that food web, as well. We basically find microplastics everywhere we look. And it's even been found in things like sea salt.
And so we know it's in our environment, but we're not quite sure yet. So we don't know how alarming this is. But we know that in the environment, lots of animals are impacted by the regular plastic and the microplastic that's there.
GABBY: Are there solutions that scientists are working on for the plastic problem? Because I know that it's a global issue.
JENNA JAMBECK: Yes. That's a great question. There's folks working on changes to our entire delivery system of food and beverages, like having RFID reusable cups and different containers that can be reused, so that you don't produce waste in the first place. And then there's scientists working on alternative materials, so even some polymers that could behave like plastic but are actually biodegradable. So you still want to manage them properly, but if they did leak out, they would biodegrade like paper in the environment. And then other people are just working on helping develop waste management infrastructure around the world, which is still needed.
MOLLY BLOOM: I think it's really easy to feel overwhelmed about the plastic problem, and just how much of it there is everywhere, and how it's such a big part of our lives. So I'm just wondering how you see the big picture of, how we'll be able to deal with this plastic issue?
JENNA JAMBECK: Mhm. I am optimistic because I've been doing this work, and really have cared about this issue for 18 years now. And there's been a huge change in that time period. I mean nobody-- nobody-- cared at all about it in our societal norms when I first started this work. And so that has been a huge change.
And I do think now, we see the roles of government, the citizen, and companies all coming together to figure out what can we do, and a lot of changes being made in different locations, about either reducing, finding ways to reduce, finding these alternative materials. There's plastic-free grocery store aisles in some places. Bulk stores are taking off again. And so I'm optimistic that the changes are going to happen.
MOLLY BLOOM: Well, thank you so much, Jenna, for your time today.
GABBY: Thank you.
JENNA JAMBECK: Yeah. Thanks, Gabby. It was very nice to meet you. I loved chatting.
MOLLY BLOOM: Thanks, Jenna
GABBY: Thank you. I learned so much.
JENNA JAMBECK: All right, bye.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Now, a public service announcement from Kelly and [? Gungadoor. ?]
- No, name is [? Gunga-- ?] wait, actually that was correct.
- If you want to reduce plastic litter, it helps to know where the litter is coming from.
- That right. You and friends can pick up litter around school--
[CHIME]
--or in neighborhood.
[CHIME]
Make notes on what plastic you find and where it came from.
[CHIME]
- Like, you find a lot of straws from a particular restaurant, make a note of that. You can later tell the restaurant how many straws you found and suggest they maybe skip straws or switch to paper ones that will break down over time.
- Or if you find plastic teeth all over park, you can tell the plastic teeth man to stop dropping them for squirrels.
[BUZZER]
- What? That doesn't happen.
- It happened once.
- I'm pretty sure you're making this up.
- No! Maybe.
- Anyway, we bet you can come up with other ways to reduce plastic, too.
- Why not start plastic task force at school with best friends?
[CHIMING]
- You and best friends can come up with more ways to help fight waste, like best friends Kelly and [? Gungadoor. ?]
- I barely know you.
- Best friend team, out!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- This has been a public service announcement from best friend team, Kelly and [? Gungadoor. ?]
- [SIGH] Let's go pick up some plastic, so it doesn't end up in the ocean. Come on, new best friend.
Yeah, best friend team!
[END PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
GABBY: Plastic is a kind of material called a polymer.
MOLLY BLOOM: That means little plastic particles are all linked together in a bunch of tiny, little chains.
GABBY: People figure it out how to create the first human made plastics about 100 years ago.
MOLLY BLOOM: Since then, strong, moldable plastic has made lots of useful stuff.
GABBY: But because plastic is so durable it's very hard for nature to break it down.
MOLLY BLOOM: When it comes to plastic, big changes need to be made in the way we use, dispose, and recycle it. And lots of people are working on solutions, but you can make changes right now, and those changes will make a difference.
GABBY: Brains On is produced by Marc Sanchez, Sanden Totten, and Molly Bloom.
MOLLY BLOOM: Menaka Wilhelm is our triple-threat fellow. She writes, produces, and tap dances. We had production help from Christina Lopez, and engineering help from Johnny Vince Evans, [? Jackie ?] [? Sharkey, ?] and Veronica Rodriguez. Many thanks to [? Jennifer ?] [INAUDIBLE], Eric Ringham, [? Jonathan ?] [? Shiflett, ?] [? Brian ?] [? Frank, ?] [? Gabrielle ?] [? Torres, ?] [? Millie ?] [? Langford, ?] [? Quincy ?] [? Silversmith, ?] [? John ?] [? Miller, ?] and [? Bridget ?] [? Asamoah. ?]
GABBY: Brains On is a nonprofit public radio podcast. Your donations help us keep making new episodes.
MOLLY BLOOM: You can donate and see our cool thank you gifts at brainson.org/donate.
GABBY: Now, before we go it's time for our Moment of Um.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um.
- My question is, how do glow-in-the-dark things glow?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Glow in the dark things, that result from a chemical reaction. OK, my name is Dr. Alleta M. Pow. I am a university professor, and I teach General Chemistry at the University of Louisville, in Louisville, Kentucky. The substances are called phosphors. And these phosphors need a little energy to actually radiate the light.
So if your substance has what's called a phosphore in it, then that phosphore needs to be a little bit energized. Usually the energy can be from the UV, or ultraviolet light. And that's what happens when the light would hit the stars on your ceiling. During the daytime, the light on your ceiling is hitting the phosphores that are in the paint, or either the plastic on the stars. So then, once you turn the light off, then the phosphors emit that light that they have stored up.
They emit the energy that they have stored up. And that energy that they emit is in the form of light. And the light is in a certain region that our eyes can see it.
- Um, um, um.
[END PLAYBACK]
- And now for a group of glowing listeners. These are the kids who help put this show together by sending in mystery sounds, questions, and drawings. This is the latest group to be added to the brain's honor roll
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[LISTING HONOR ROLL]
CREW: Brains Honor Roll [INAUDIBLE].
MOLLY BLOOM: We'll be back soon with more answers to your questions.
GABBY: Thanks for listening.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom-- Smash Boom Best
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: And now for a preview of Smash Boom Best-- Jupiter versus Venus.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Sneak attack.
- Our third round is a complete surprise for our debaters. Are you two ready to hear your sneak attack challenge?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- All right. Your sneak attack is alpha facts. Come up with as many facts as you can about your side for each letter of the alphabet.
- Oh, gosh.
- You'll have 30 seconds to rattle them off. So this is a tough one. You're just going to do it off the top of your head. So if my side were Smash Boom Best, here's how I would do it. A is for attacking opponents is a bad idea. B is for better do your research. C is for creativity is key. D is for debate rules. E is for excite your audience. F is for fact checking is important.
We're going to give our debaters a minute to brainstorm while we take a dance break.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Sister Venus, burning bright. Acid clouds, hot day and night. Cloudy neighbor, darling morning star. Giant Jupiter, big red spot. Many, many moons, and a core that's hot. Super bright, fifth planet from the sun.
- Are you both ready?
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- OK, Tommy, [? Kasha ?] went first last time, so you're up first. I will time you and cut you off when you reach 30 seconds. Let's hear those alpha facts, starting now.
[TICKING]
A-- astronomers love it. They've been charting it since B-- Babylonian times. And it's also B-- bright. And its atmosphere is full of C-- carbon-- D-- dioxide. E-- Earth is its F-- friend, even though it's full of G-- greenhouse gases. H-- how can I keep talking with all these facts I've thought about? I-- don't know.
[LAUGHTER]
I-- that's as far as I got.
- And time. You really squeezed a lot into those 30 seconds. [? Kasha, ?] we're going to see how many you can get in just 30 seconds. Your time starts now.
[TICKING]
- A-- apple colored spot. B-- big. C-- colossal. D-- daunting personality. E-- exquisite colors. F-- flinging satellite missions into space. G-- gigantic gas planet. H-- hallelujah, Jupiter was here to create the puny Venus. I-- incredible scenery. J-- Jupiter is obviously much, much better than Venus. K-- [? Kasha ?] is so cool for picking Jupiter. L--
- And time.
[LAUGHTER]
- I might have not actually gotten to K.
- L-- L is for leave me alone.
- To hear the rest of this smash boom debate, head to smashboom.org or subscribe to Smash Boom Best wherever you get your podcasts.
[END PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CREW: Brains On is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
GABBY: Molly, have you noticed how plastic is everywhere?
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, but I've got my reusable water bottle here for the taping, so yay for me.
GABBY: But that water bottle is also made of plastic.
MOLLY BLOOM: Well, yeah, but dishwasher safe.
GABBY: That dishwasher has a lot of plastic in it.
MOLLY BLOOM: True.
GABBY: Your glasses are made of plastic.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, yeah.
GABBY: Those cute earrings you're wearing? Plastic, too. And that microphone? Lots of plastic there. Most of that chair you're sitting in, too. The fleece jacket on the back of your chair? Yeah, that's plastic. And look at the light switch, and your tennis shoes, this carpet-- also made of plastic.
MOLLY BLOOM: Holy synthetic polymers, Batman.
GABBY: Yeah, everywhere.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In my watch, in my barrette, most of my backpack, lots of parts of my mom's car, my toothbrush, the toothpaste tube, dental floss.
MOLLY BLOOM: You're listening to Brains On for American Public Media. I'm Molly Bloom and I'm here today with Gabby, from Guelph, Ontario. Hi, Gabby.
GABBY: Hi.
MOLLY BLOOM: Today, we're talking plastic. It's pretty much all around us.
GABBY: Because it's good at lots of stuff.
MOLLY BLOOM: A lot of Brains On listeners wondered about this wild material.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- How is plastic made?
- How is oil used to make plastic?
- How is plastic made?
- Plastic is not flammable but it's made out of oil, which is flammable. How come?
- What is plastic made out of?
- I know my clothes are made from it, and it can melt, but I don't know what it is.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: We got those questions from Cecilia, Teddy, and Gus, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Oakley, from Nova Scotia, Canada, Adeline, and Noah, from Austin, Texas, Sam, from Rockville, Maryland, Delia, and Heidi, from Canberra, Australia, and Oliver, from East Lansing, Michigan. They are excellent questions. So let's get right down to it. Plastic is moldable and lightweight.
GABBY: And it doesn't disintegrate, so it lasts and lasts.
MOLLY BLOOM: Which means getting rid of it can be tricky, but we'll get to that in a bit.
GABBY: First off, we're diving into where this material came from.
MOLLY BLOOM: For most of human history, people didn't have the kinds of plastic we use today.
GABBY: They made things out of natural materials, like stone, horns, or bones.
MOLLY BLOOM: Or glass, metal, or clay.
GABBY: Human made plastics are pretty different from all of those materials. But technically, some of those materials are natural plastics.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. What plastic materials, or polymers, all have in common is that if you zoom way, way in--
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Zoom, zoom. Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: You'd see a bunch of different chains of tiny, plastic bits.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Hello. Hi, oh, looks like I'm caught in your--
- Oh, boy, I'm twisted up like a pretzel.
- Oh yeah, I seem to be stuck.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: All the chains swirl in different directions and stick together in some places. Think of a bird's nest or cold spaghetti.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Oh, am I stepping on you?
- If I can just get this [INAUDIBLE]
- I give up. This is a mess.
- Well, this is where I'm staying I guess.
[END PLAYBACK]
GABBY: The chains are where polymers get their name.
MOLLY BLOOM: "Poly" means many, and "mers" are units-- many units.
GABBY: There are plenty of natural materials made of tiny chains. They're polymers, too, like hair or even DNA.
MOLLY BLOOM: Rubber is another good example of a natural plastic. It comes from rubber trees.
GABBY: And people in Mexico and Central America were using rubber to make balls thousands of years ago.
MOLLY BLOOM: But there are problems with natural materials. For starters, you can run out of them. So eventually, people started looking for other stuff to make things out of.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Yoo-hoo, don't mean to interrupt-- name's John Wesley Hyatt-- but I have just the tale for you. Care to join me in the parlor for a game of billiards?
GABBY: Billiards?
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: You know, it's a game. You play on a table. You hit the billiard balls with spindly sticks.
GABBY: - Oh, you're talking about pool. Sure, I'd love to play.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Great.
[RACKING BALLS]
These billiard balls are where our plastic story begins. Ah, I'm solid. Y'all are stripes. First of all, these modern-day billiard balls are plastic.
MOLLY BLOOM: Ooh, Gabby, you've got a good angle on that first shot. I'll go next.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: But in my day, in the 1860s, the finest billiard balls were made of elephant's tusks, which is called ivory.
GABBY: That sounds pretty bad for the elephants.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Yes, especially because the game of billiards was sure some pumpkins. It was more popular than sarsaparilla.
MOLLY BLOOM: Is that good?
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Well, of course. People were buying so many billiard balls we started to worry we might run out of elephants-- er, ivory. So one company decides it needs a new way to make these balls.
CREW: Reward! Anyone who can find a suitable substitute for ivory, we'll give you $10,000 in gold.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: That gets my attention. I'm no chemist, mind you. I started out as a printer, in New York. But I did invent a knife sharpener as a young man. So hey, why not tackle inventing a new material?
MOLLY BLOOM: And what material are you working with at this point?
[BALLS CLACKING]
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Ooh, nice shot. I start with gun cotton. It's a mix of lab chemicals and cotton. People used to use it as gunpowder but I have a hunch it'll work as a pool ball, too. Eh? You see, gun cotton sort of melts when it's hot so I can shape the balls. And then it hardens as it cools. Gun cotton does light on fire pretty easily, but I throw my eyebrows to the wind and tinker in my shed.
GABBY: Your eyebrows look pretty good now.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Well, thanks. They grew back, eventually. So anyway, after a few years, I have a pretty good ivory substitute. It's moldable, it's water resistant, and it hardens. My brother, Isaiah, helps me name it.
ISAIAH HYATT: John, you should call it celluloid, because, you know, the cotton fibers are mainly cellulose. Then you add the "oid," which is totally fun to add to any word. You know-- catoid, tableoid, celluloid-- how could you call it anything else?
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Celluloid it is! Yes. I should say, other people made mixtures like mine before. What's special about my celluloid is the way I made it. I kept my molding process as simple as possible, so it's easy to make a lot of different things out of celluloid. That's how I started my business-- the Celluloid Manufacturing Company.
CREW: Celluloid, get your celluloid here.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: My celluloid billiard balls work pretty well. But they do have one, tiny problem.
CREW: It's a wonder of a material, as beautiful as ivory, and it comes in any color you like, so stock up and--
[FLAMES CRACKLING]
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: The balls are still flammable and just a teeny bit explosive. Well, they sometimes make a really loud cracking sound during games.
[BALLS CLACKING]
So I never get my prize money.
CREW: Read the fine print-- prize money for good substitutes only.
MOLLY BLOOM: Bummer.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: A little. But like lots of inventions, celluloid ends up being useful in other ways. It's easy to make into different shapes so my brother and I make plastic for all kinds of things, like eyeglass frames, piano keys, and combs.
ISAIAH HYATT: So you can see your sheet music clearly, as you play a song, with a perfect part in your hair.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: [LAUGHS] Now, fragile objects run less risk of exploding than billiard balls. They get smacked around less. Yeah? Later, people also use celluloid to make film for photographs and movies.
[BALLS CLACKING]
Oh, drat. There goes the eight ball. You're the winners.
GABBY: Celluloid was still pretty flammable, though, wasn't it?
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Definitely. But people make even more new plastics after that, materials that were less flammable and easier to work with. Soon, no one was starting with cotton or rubber at all. Plastic nowadays-- I mean, in the present day-- tends to come from crude oil-- natural gas.
MOLLY BLOOM: Wow. Thank you, John, and good try on the billiard ball substitute, and good game.
JOHN WESLEY HYATT: Yes. Join me in the parlor any time. I'd love to tell you the story of my knife sharpener invention, too.
GABBY: Maybe later.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
See you.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Brains, brains, brains.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: So like John mentioned, even though celluloid wasn't a perfect ivory replacement, it showed people how useful it could be to replace a natural material. So over the next 100 years or so, people came up with even better recipes for different plastics. And they invented better machines to mold plastic products. Since then, plastic has made so many things possible.
GABBY: Think about plastic gloves and sealed sterile tools at the doctor's office. Plastic has made medicine cleaner and safer. It's also made many life saving medical devices possible.
[HISSING]
MOLLY BLOOM: Plastic parts make airplanes and cars lighter, so they go farther on less fuel.
[HONKING]
GABBY: Without plastic, even computers would be harder to make, and way more expensive.
[CLACKING]
MOLLY BLOOM: And that's only a few of the ways plastic has changed the world. It's had such an impact, we thought it deserved a song.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Ivory was really running low. Hyatt tried celluloid, hoped it wouldn't explode. In World Wars, soldiers needed more. Plane windshields, parachutes, records-- polymers were really on a road. So many ways to make them-- extruder or injection mold.
So many plastics, from big to small. I don't think I can name them all, but I'll try. Here we go. Celluloid is used in movies. Bakelite can make a bracelet right. Nylon will stretch with the best. For transparency, use Plexiglas. Poly ether ether ketone helps turn cars into fast machines. Ethylene vinyl acetate, it's in pool noodles and soccer cleats. Polyvinyl [INAUDIBLE] chloride, better known as PVC. Synthetic rubber, oh my, in wetsuits is called neoprene.
So many plastics all around us. So well made, they won't biodegrade. Can you name all the plastics? Or can you make a plastic that fades? Well, can you make a plastic that fades? Well, can you make a plastic that fades?
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: So there are a lot of different kinds of plastics and they're not all made in exactly the same way, but here are the basics. Crude oil and natural gas are broken down into ethane and propane. Many of those molecules in a chain are called a polymer.
And remember how we talked about polymers before? Well, those polymers are then mixed with all kinds of additives and colors, and they're melted, which transforms them into resins. These resins are cooled down and then cut up into teeny pellets.
These plastic pellets get sent to factories, where they are again melted, and molded, and pulled into all the plastic stuff around us. We're going to hear more about the downside of the plastic making process in a minute. But before we do that, it's time for--
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Mystery sound.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: Gabby, are you ready?
GABBY: Yes.
MOLLY BLOOM: All right, here it is.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[CRINKLING]
[END PLAYBACK]
Any guesses?
GABBY: Um, it kind of sounds like plastic crinkling, like when you squeeze a plastic bottle.
MOLLY BLOOM: Hmm, very good guess. Well, we'll be back with the answer in just a bit.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We're working on an episode about spacesuits right now.
GABBY: You know, those high-tech suits that let astronauts do stuff in the cold, dark void of space.
MOLLY BLOOM: Those suits. And we want to hear about the super suits of your dreams. If you could invent a suit to help you with something here on earth, what would it do? Gabby, what would you want a super suit to help you with?
GABBY: I would want my super suit to help me fly and run around really fast.
MOLLY BLOOM: That would be awesome. What color would your super suit be?
GABBY: Probably purple, or blue, maybe like the galaxy.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, I like it. Well, listeners, send us your super suit ideas at brainson.org/contact. We'll include some of your ideas in that episode.
GABBY: And while you're there at brainson.org/contact, you can send us mystery sounds, drawings, and questions.
MOLLY BLOOM: Like this listener did.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Hi, my name is August. I'm from [INAUDIBLE], Alberta, Canada and my question is how to glow in the dark things glow?
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: We'll be back with the answer during our Moment of Um, at the end of the show, and we'll read the most recent group of listeners to be added to the Brains Honor Roll.
GABBY: And if you keep listening to the very, very end, you'll hear a preview of Smash Boom Best.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's the show where debaters use facts, history, and lore to convince us that their side is smash, boom, best.
GABBY: Whoa, keep listening.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- And now, a public service announcement from Kelly and-- [LAUGHS] what does this say?
- It say [? Gongadoor. ?] [CLEARS THROAT]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- And now, a public service announcement from Kelly and a garage door.
- What? No, it-- oh, hi, Brains On listeners. It me, [? Gongadoor. ?]
- And I'm Kelly.
- We partners in school project.
[CHIME]
- The teacher made me work with him.
- Before, I was mightiest monster fighter in land. Now I fight new enemy-- single use plastics.
[WOBBLY NOISE]
Hi-yah! We make video to teach you to fight plastic, too.
- And also because we want extra credit.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- One way to fight plastic is to punch it.
- Uh, did you actually do the research, [? Gangadoor? ?]
- Of course. I researched many fighting moves. You can also swizzle kick plastic-- pow!
- We're not literally fighting plastic. We're explaining how to reduce your plastic use.
- Uh, reduce?
- Yeah, like trying to bring a reusable water bottle to school, so you can skip buying water bottles that you'll only use once and then get rid of them.
- Wow, smart idea.
- Or you can bring your lunch in a Mason jar or a reusable container, instead of plastic bags, or even challenge your friends to a litterless lunch, where the goal is eating a meal without creating any garbage at all.
- Or you can, uh, find plastic trash and, uh,
- And re--
- Report it to the plastic police!
[SIREN]
Get em, plastic officer!
- No, no. Recy--
- Resize it, so it's smaller plastic now. Take that, tiny plastic.
- No, recycle it. Put it in the recycling bin.
- Oh, wow. That much better plan.
- Uh, they said this would be an easy A.
- This has been a public service announcement from Kelly and a garage door.
- Gangadoor!
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
GABBY: You're listening to Brains On, from American Public Media. I'm Gabby.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I'm Molly. And today, we're talking plastic. Let's go back to that mystery sound again. Here it is.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[CRACKLING]
[END PLAYBACK]
All right, last time you thought it was a water bottle being crinkled.
GABBY: Mhm.
MOLLY BLOOM: Do you have any new thoughts? You want to stick with that?
GABBY: Um, I still think it has something to do with that.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK, well, here is the answer.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Hello. My name is Evan. And the sound you just heard was me squashing an empty water bottle.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: You were 100% correct. Nicely done. You have very good ears.
GABBY: Thank you.
CREW: Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, Brains On.
MOLLY BLOOM: So like we just talked about, plastic has a lot of useful qualities, which is why we use it in, like, everything.
GABBY: Yeah, it's everywhere, because it's lightweight and doesn't break easily, can be molded into pretty much any shape, and lasts forever.
MOLLY BLOOM: So if it lasts forever, how do we get rid of it? Brains On listeners had a lot of questions about that too.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- How does recycling work?
- How can we keep plastic from getting into our environment?
- I'm interested in plastic because it makes up a lot of stuff in our house.
- Why does plastic take so long to decompose?
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: High five to Charlie and Harper, from Los Angeles, Cathy, from Goshen, Indiana, Nathan, from High Point, North Carolina, and Emmylou, from Sydney, Australia for their questions. In the end, what makes plastic very useful also makes it problematic.
GABBY: Once we make plastic, we're stuck with it. Paper, or metal, or glass, or food-- those will all naturally break down over time.
MOLLY BLOOM: Food will break down faster than paper, but they'll both biodegrade.
GABBY: Biodegrading means that air, water, sunlight, and microbes can break the materials into smaller and smaller pieces.
MOLLY BLOOM: Eventually, little pieces of those materials-- their molecules-- become part of the environment again.
GABBY: Bacteria and other microbes, like fungi, play a big part in that process. They can eat and digest natural materials.
MOLLY BLOOM: So why does plastic just sit there? We asked someone who studies how bacteria break things down.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Hello my name's Jose [? Liget. ?]
[END PLAYBACK]
GABBY: Jose took us on a quick trip to the Tasty Waste Buffet, where bacteria and fungi go to get their fill of the trash we toss.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Golly, I just love that this place brings the waste to us. We bacteria have needed something like this for a long time.
- I know. Let's get started with some paper and plant products.
- Plants have been here for hundreds of millions of years. So these are materials that bacteria just have known for so long that they are prepared to eat them.
- Great idea. Love a good old plate of plant fiber. And I love how Tasty Waste preps everything.
- Yeah, you can really tell that all these materials have been sitting out in nature for a long time. Jose, tell all these nice people what nature does to a material like food or paper.
- The sun will start breaking it down. And then the moisture from the air, rain, everything, like animal stomping on it-- that will start breaking it down.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Mmm, this cardboard-- perfectly rained on, practically falling off the box.
- These potato peels! They must have baked in the sun for weeks!
[CHEWING SOUNDS]
- Mmm, delish, just like it has been for millions of years. What next?
- What's that over there-- a whole new buffet section?
- Play stick-- huh?
- I think it's plastic. Whatever that material is, being out in nature did not affect it.
- The problem is that when you throw away a plastic bag or a plastic bottle, these are so hardy, so they can withstand a lot the sun, they can withstand moisture. So that initial step to start degrading, it takes a long time. It takes a very long time.
- I just-- I don't really even know how I would start eating that.
- Bacteria encounter these materials and they're like, how do I break them? And plastics are made to not be easily broken down.
- I mean, we spent millions of years getting awesome at eating earth materials.
- And this new plastic-- [CHOKING NOISES] Ugh, it's so tough. Seems like a lot of work for not a lot of yum.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Microbes are amazing. We could probably figure out a way to eat this. But it might take a while for us to get really good at it. How much longer is the Tasty Waste Buffet open?
- And so yeah, that's why it's so hard for bacteria to break this down, and fungi, too.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: We figured out how to make plastics so amazing and strong that nature doesn't affect it.
GABBY: And unfortunately, that leaves plastic to affect nature, instead.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Brains on!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- And now, a public service announcement from Kelly and grungy George.
- Heh, Grungy George, you want to start this one?
- [? Gungadoor! ?] What's so hard about that?
- OK, I guess I'll go. So you want to use less plastic, but what if your favorite product comes wrapped in plastic?
- Like these crayons-- they already in box. Why also wrap in plastic?
- Exactly. One thing to try is to look up the company's address and write them a letter.
- Dear Colortastic--
[TYPING]
--Crayons, you have pretty colors, but why not skip plastic wrap?
[DING]
It better for planet.
- If enough people write in, the company might change. You can also seek out similar products that use less plastic, right George?
- I not George. I [? Gunga-- ?] whoops, I dropped the crayons.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- This has been a public service announcement from Kelly and [? Gunga ?] whoops I dropped the crayons.
- Come on, dude.
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: So what do we do about all this plastic? Now Gabby, you wrote to us with a really interesting question about plastic. What did you write to us about?
GABBY: I was wondering what happens to the microplastics in our oceans and how they affect us?
MOLLY BLOOM: And how did you get interested in that?
GABBY: At my school we were doing a project-- or I was doing a project on plastic. And I was doing a lot of research, and I was learning about some negative points, but I wanted to learn more. And also, I like the environment so I kind of wanted to know what was happening.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, it's good to know what's going on around you.
GABBY: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: So what would you say is the most interesting thing you learned, that you sort of took away with you, after working on that project?
GABBY: After working on that, I think that the most interesting thing was that there is so much plastic in our world, and how some of it's good and some of it's bad. But just like, it's just kind of everywhere. And so that kind of got me thinking. We need it, but at the same time, do we?
MOLLY BLOOM: Has it led to you making any changes?
GABBY: Yes. I don't drink from plastic water bottles, like, ever.
MOLLY BLOOM: Anything else?
GABBY: Whenever I see plastic on the ground or something, if it's safe of course, then I try to clean it up, or I'll share my ideas with my friends and my family. But one change at a time.
MOLLY BLOOM: So you sort of try to get your friends and family to make some of the changes you've started making?
GABBY: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: What's the most surprising place that you've realized plastic is, that you're like, I did not even think about that.
GABBY: I think I might have been in my own bedroom. Like, all my room decorations were plastic and everything was plastic, even though I was trying to stop using so much plastic.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. You're like, oh, no, look-- my room, covered in plastic.
GABBY: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: Well, I think that's great that you're trying to make some changes. We can all make some little changes.
GABBY: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: We're really lucky, because we have Jenna Jambeck here, to answer our questions.
GABBY: She's an environmental engineer at the University of Georgia. Welcome, Jenna.
JENNA JAMBECK: Thank you. Glad to be here
GABBY: Do you know how much plastic is recycled
JENNA JAMBECK: Globally, the average recycling rate for plastic is about 9%. So less than 10% worldwide. And that actually is the same average within the United States, as well. So we're looking at a pretty small fraction of what we actually generate, in terms of plastic waste, as being able to get recycled.
GABBY: And so how is the plastic that is properly recycled-- how does that happen?
JENNA JAMBECK: It moves from the recycle bin to being washed and shredded. And then it can be remelted and extruded into things that look like these long spaghetti pieces. And then that's cooled and then it's sliced up into these little, tiny pellets, that are the actual resin, that then can get shipped back to manufacturers to remold into other items.
MOLLY BLOOM: Where else does plastic end up besides the garbage can?
JENNA JAMBECK: Hmm. So if it's not properly managed, and that can be sort of in two ways. Before, it would get to the trash cans, if someone litters it, either on purpose or maybe it blows from a picnic or something, then it ends up in our environment, on the land.
And I think what's really important is, people need to understand, how does that then end up in the ocean. And either wind, or when you think about when we have a rainstorm, and the water runs over the land, and drains into our waterways-- whether they be streams, rivers. Those kind of systems, then, can take it to the ocean. Or if you're near the coastline, it can go directly into the ocean there. And that's why we're seeing so much of it ending up in the ocean.
In other areas, they actually don't have waste collection. So I've been a lot of places around the world where there's no bin to put your trash in. And so a lot of those folks have been just putting it in piles and open burning it, or even using the land or waterways as disposal methods.
GABBY: What are microplastics?
JENNA JAMBECK: Plastic does not biodegrade. So it means the carbon in it is not taken up by microbes as food. And so instead of actually breaking down that way, it fragments into smaller and smaller pieces. Microplastics are about the size of a pencil eraser or smaller. And so over time, the plastic fragments and these pieces are what we end up finding in the environment.
GABBY: Oh. And how do they affect us, like, if they're so small, sometimes?
JENNA JAMBECK: So we know that microplastic is being consumed by even the tiniest creatures in the food web. And the food web, also humans participate in that food web, as well. We basically find microplastics everywhere we look. And it's even been found in things like sea salt.
And so we know it's in our environment, but we're not quite sure yet. So we don't know how alarming this is. But we know that in the environment, lots of animals are impacted by the regular plastic and the microplastic that's there.
GABBY: Are there solutions that scientists are working on for the plastic problem? Because I know that it's a global issue.
JENNA JAMBECK: Yes. That's a great question. There's folks working on changes to our entire delivery system of food and beverages, like having RFID reusable cups and different containers that can be reused, so that you don't produce waste in the first place. And then there's scientists working on alternative materials, so even some polymers that could behave like plastic but are actually biodegradable. So you still want to manage them properly, but if they did leak out, they would biodegrade like paper in the environment. And then other people are just working on helping develop waste management infrastructure around the world, which is still needed.
MOLLY BLOOM: I think it's really easy to feel overwhelmed about the plastic problem, and just how much of it there is everywhere, and how it's such a big part of our lives. So I'm just wondering how you see the big picture of, how we'll be able to deal with this plastic issue?
JENNA JAMBECK: Mhm. I am optimistic because I've been doing this work, and really have cared about this issue for 18 years now. And there's been a huge change in that time period. I mean nobody-- nobody-- cared at all about it in our societal norms when I first started this work. And so that has been a huge change.
And I do think now, we see the roles of government, the citizen, and companies all coming together to figure out what can we do, and a lot of changes being made in different locations, about either reducing, finding ways to reduce, finding these alternative materials. There's plastic-free grocery store aisles in some places. Bulk stores are taking off again. And so I'm optimistic that the changes are going to happen.
MOLLY BLOOM: Well, thank you so much, Jenna, for your time today.
GABBY: Thank you.
JENNA JAMBECK: Yeah. Thanks, Gabby. It was very nice to meet you. I loved chatting.
MOLLY BLOOM: Thanks, Jenna
GABBY: Thank you. I learned so much.
JENNA JAMBECK: All right, bye.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Now, a public service announcement from Kelly and [? Gungadoor. ?]
- No, name is [? Gunga-- ?] wait, actually that was correct.
- If you want to reduce plastic litter, it helps to know where the litter is coming from.
- That right. You and friends can pick up litter around school--
[CHIME]
--or in neighborhood.
[CHIME]
Make notes on what plastic you find and where it came from.
[CHIME]
- Like, you find a lot of straws from a particular restaurant, make a note of that. You can later tell the restaurant how many straws you found and suggest they maybe skip straws or switch to paper ones that will break down over time.
- Or if you find plastic teeth all over park, you can tell the plastic teeth man to stop dropping them for squirrels.
[BUZZER]
- What? That doesn't happen.
- It happened once.
- I'm pretty sure you're making this up.
- No! Maybe.
- Anyway, we bet you can come up with other ways to reduce plastic, too.
- Why not start plastic task force at school with best friends?
[CHIMING]
- You and best friends can come up with more ways to help fight waste, like best friends Kelly and [? Gungadoor. ?]
- I barely know you.
- Best friend team, out!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- This has been a public service announcement from best friend team, Kelly and [? Gungadoor. ?]
- [SIGH] Let's go pick up some plastic, so it doesn't end up in the ocean. Come on, new best friend.
Yeah, best friend team!
[END PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
GABBY: Plastic is a kind of material called a polymer.
MOLLY BLOOM: That means little plastic particles are all linked together in a bunch of tiny, little chains.
GABBY: People figure it out how to create the first human made plastics about 100 years ago.
MOLLY BLOOM: Since then, strong, moldable plastic has made lots of useful stuff.
GABBY: But because plastic is so durable it's very hard for nature to break it down.
MOLLY BLOOM: When it comes to plastic, big changes need to be made in the way we use, dispose, and recycle it. And lots of people are working on solutions, but you can make changes right now, and those changes will make a difference.
GABBY: Brains On is produced by Marc Sanchez, Sanden Totten, and Molly Bloom.
MOLLY BLOOM: Menaka Wilhelm is our triple-threat fellow. She writes, produces, and tap dances. We had production help from Christina Lopez, and engineering help from Johnny Vince Evans, [? Jackie ?] [? Sharkey, ?] and Veronica Rodriguez. Many thanks to [? Jennifer ?] [INAUDIBLE], Eric Ringham, [? Jonathan ?] [? Shiflett, ?] [? Brian ?] [? Frank, ?] [? Gabrielle ?] [? Torres, ?] [? Millie ?] [? Langford, ?] [? Quincy ?] [? Silversmith, ?] [? John ?] [? Miller, ?] and [? Bridget ?] [? Asamoah. ?]
GABBY: Brains On is a nonprofit public radio podcast. Your donations help us keep making new episodes.
MOLLY BLOOM: You can donate and see our cool thank you gifts at brainson.org/donate.
GABBY: Now, before we go it's time for our Moment of Um.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um.
- My question is, how do glow-in-the-dark things glow?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Glow in the dark things, that result from a chemical reaction. OK, my name is Dr. Alleta M. Pow. I am a university professor, and I teach General Chemistry at the University of Louisville, in Louisville, Kentucky. The substances are called phosphors. And these phosphors need a little energy to actually radiate the light.
So if your substance has what's called a phosphore in it, then that phosphore needs to be a little bit energized. Usually the energy can be from the UV, or ultraviolet light. And that's what happens when the light would hit the stars on your ceiling. During the daytime, the light on your ceiling is hitting the phosphores that are in the paint, or either the plastic on the stars. So then, once you turn the light off, then the phosphors emit that light that they have stored up.
They emit the energy that they have stored up. And that energy that they emit is in the form of light. And the light is in a certain region that our eyes can see it.
- Um, um, um.
[END PLAYBACK]
- And now for a group of glowing listeners. These are the kids who help put this show together by sending in mystery sounds, questions, and drawings. This is the latest group to be added to the brain's honor roll
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[LISTING HONOR ROLL]
CREW: Brains Honor Roll [INAUDIBLE].
MOLLY BLOOM: We'll be back soon with more answers to your questions.
GABBY: Thanks for listening.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom-- Smash Boom Best
[END PLAYBACK]
MOLLY BLOOM: And now for a preview of Smash Boom Best-- Jupiter versus Venus.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Sneak attack.
- Our third round is a complete surprise for our debaters. Are you two ready to hear your sneak attack challenge?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- All right. Your sneak attack is alpha facts. Come up with as many facts as you can about your side for each letter of the alphabet.
- Oh, gosh.
- You'll have 30 seconds to rattle them off. So this is a tough one. You're just going to do it off the top of your head. So if my side were Smash Boom Best, here's how I would do it. A is for attacking opponents is a bad idea. B is for better do your research. C is for creativity is key. D is for debate rules. E is for excite your audience. F is for fact checking is important.
We're going to give our debaters a minute to brainstorm while we take a dance break.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Sister Venus, burning bright. Acid clouds, hot day and night. Cloudy neighbor, darling morning star. Giant Jupiter, big red spot. Many, many moons, and a core that's hot. Super bright, fifth planet from the sun.
- Are you both ready?
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- OK, Tommy, [? Kasha ?] went first last time, so you're up first. I will time you and cut you off when you reach 30 seconds. Let's hear those alpha facts, starting now.
[TICKING]
A-- astronomers love it. They've been charting it since B-- Babylonian times. And it's also B-- bright. And its atmosphere is full of C-- carbon-- D-- dioxide. E-- Earth is its F-- friend, even though it's full of G-- greenhouse gases. H-- how can I keep talking with all these facts I've thought about? I-- don't know.
[LAUGHTER]
I-- that's as far as I got.
- And time. You really squeezed a lot into those 30 seconds. [? Kasha, ?] we're going to see how many you can get in just 30 seconds. Your time starts now.
[TICKING]
- A-- apple colored spot. B-- big. C-- colossal. D-- daunting personality. E-- exquisite colors. F-- flinging satellite missions into space. G-- gigantic gas planet. H-- hallelujah, Jupiter was here to create the puny Venus. I-- incredible scenery. J-- Jupiter is obviously much, much better than Venus. K-- [? Kasha ?] is so cool for picking Jupiter. L--
- And time.
[LAUGHTER]
- I might have not actually gotten to K.
- L-- L is for leave me alone.
- To hear the rest of this smash boom debate, head to smashboom.org or subscribe to Smash Boom Best wherever you get your podcasts.
[END PLAYBACK]
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