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If you now travel to 10 million years later, you want to see evidence of the existence of human civilization.
By that time, the Great Wall might have weathered into mounds of earth, the skyscrapers would have rusted into slag, and even the radiation from nuclear waste would have faded away.

But there is a layer of something that will wrap the entire earth tightly like a geological rock layer.
It was a thin, colorful layer of sediment.

Future geologists (if they are aliens) will name this geological era the "Plastic Period".

In the billions of years of history of this planet, there has never been anything like this. It is an alien form in nature, a monster of chemical bonds, and an "indigestible" constipation given to the earth by humans.


1. Its original intention is to "accumulate virtue"?

You may not believe it, but the ancestor of plastic was actually invented to protect wild animals.

In the mid-19th century, playing billiards became popular among the upper classes in Europe and America.
At that time, billiards were made using ivory carts. A top billiard ball requires the sacrifice of the life of an adult elephant.
As billiards becomes more and more popular, Africa's elephants are almost being killed. The billiard ball manufacturer panicked and offered a reward of US$10,000 (a huge sum of money at the time) for a substitute for ivory.

A printer named John Wesley Hyatt accidentally mixed camphor and nitrocellulose together while messing around with chemical reagents.
A thing that can be shaped at will and is as tough as bone when hardened is born - Celluloid.

This is humanity’s first commercial plastic.
Although it has a fatal flaw: extremely explosive (after all, it is made of nitrocellulose, which is related to gunpowder). In the billiards hall at that time, there was often a "bang" sound when the billiard balls exploded, and everyone had to pull out guns and point at each other, thinking who had fired.

But anyway, the elephant was saved. For the first time, humans realized: We can play God and create substances that are not found in nature. ## 2. “One-off” lies: a forcibly created need

Plastic truly took over the world after World War II.
With the explosion of petrochemical technology, ethylene and propylene, the "waste gases" left over from oil refining, have been transformed into polyethylene and polypropylene.

Businessmen at that time faced a problem: plastic was too durable.
If you buy a plastic plate, it will never break or be used. What if you only buy it once in your life? Isn't the factory going to close down?

Thus, the greatest brainwashing marketing in business history began - "Throwaway Culture" (Throwaway Living).

On the cover of Life magazine in the 1950s, there was a photo of a family happily throwing plates, cups, and forks into the air.
The advertisement reads: "Are you still washing dishes? It's so outdated! Just throw it away after use and enjoy a free life!"

This was an extremely luxurious concept at the time. If you told your grandpa that "bowls are thrown away after use", he would think you were crazy.
But the plastics industry has implanted this concept into the brains of all mankind.

We have become accustomed to drinking a cup of milk tea in 3 minutes, and then throwing the cup into the trash can that can be buried in the soil for 500 years.
We use a "eternal" material to carry an "instant" use.
This is extremely absurd logically.

3. The bacteria were also confused: Why is this thing inedible?

Why does wood rot? Why are apples corrupt?
Because there are countless microorganisms, bacteria, and fungi in nature. They have evolved for hundreds of millions of years and are responsible for "disassembling" organic matter in nature, turning dust to dust and soil to soil.

But plastic is "alien".
Its molecular structure (such as polyethylene) is thousands of carbon atoms holding hands to form an ultra-long, ultra-stable chain. This arrangement has never been seen in nature.

To bacteria, the plastic bottle in front of them is like a Man-Han banquet written in heavenly script.
It wants to eat, but it doesn't have the "enzyme" knife and fork, so it can't eat at all.

Therefore, plastic does not "rot". It will only "photolyze".
Under the irradiation of the sun's ultraviolet rays, large pieces of plastic become brittle, disintegrate, turn into small pieces, become fragments, and finally turn into dust invisible to the naked eye.

Note, it didn't disappear, it just died into pieces.

4. Final comeuppance: Did you take a credit card this week?

These plastic dust invisible to the naked eye are Microplastics.

They float in the snow on Mount Everest and sink in the mud of the Mariana Trench. Of course, eventually they make their way up the food chain.
Plankton eats microplastics, small fish eat plankton, big fish eats small fish, and you eat big fish.

In 2022, scientists detected microplastics in the blood of living people for the first time.
In 2023, microplastics were discovered in human placenta.
They have even been found in male testicular tissue.

Now, the average weekly intake of microplastics per human being is about 5 grams.
How much is 5 grams?
Exactly the weight of a credit card.

Congratulations, you chewed up and swallowed a credit card every week without even realizing it.

Once these things go in, they never come out. They cause inflammation, disrupt endocrine systems, and may even cross the blood-brain barrier. We are turning ourselves into a half-silicon, half-carbon, half-plastic hybrid creature.

5. The scam within the scam: the triangle logo

Finally, reveal a truth that makes you despair.

You must have seen the "Triangular Arrow Chase" logo on the bottom of a plastic bottle, right?
Most people think that means "recyclable".
As soon as I throw it in the recycling bin, it becomes a new bottle, right?

wrong. Big mistake.

That's just a "Resin Identification Code". It only represents what material the plastic is made of (No. 1 is PET, No. 5 is PP), and it does not mean that it can be recycled at all.
This is actually a conspiracy of the oil giants.

Decades ago, in response to environmental pressure, they deliberately designed this logo that closely resembled "recycling" to give consumers an illusory sense of moral satisfaction: "I recycled, I saved the earth."

Actually?
Less than 9% of plastic globally is actually recycled.
The vast majority of the rest is either burned (producing highly toxic dioxins), landfilled, or transported to poor countries in Southeast Asia and dumped into rivers.

Why? Because recycling is too expensive.
It is much cheaper to make new plastic from petroleum than to clean old plastic and recycle it. In the logic of capital, recycling is a false proposition.


Conclusion

Sometimes I think, if plastic is conscious, it must feel aggrieved.

It is designed to be the most durable and stable material, which is its advantage.
It is human greed that insists on turning this "god" that can be passed down from generation to generation into disposable straws and bags.

Now, the revenge begins.
The trash we think we throw away has never left.
They changed their form, fell with the rain, floated with the ocean currents, and finally returned to our dining tables and back to our bodies.

This is the ultimate closed loop: humans create plastic, and plastic eventually assimilates humans.