Plastic: The Biography

Plastic: The Biography

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Stealing Power

Meter tampering means altering a meter to prevent it from fully recording how much electricity or gas is being used, or bypassing the meter completely to energy usage being recorded at all. It may seem like a great idea, but there are consequences. It’s dangerous and it is a crim ...  Show more

The Club Nobody Wants to Join

There Is a club that no high school principal in the USA wants to join, but they are all incredibly grateful that its there. Because in the event of the worst possible scenario happening, they will need it The 'Principal Recovery Network' is made up of school leaders who have liv ...  Show more

Recommended Episodes

Smile Plastics’ Rosalie McMillan and Adam Fairweather on recycling plastic and reviving a company.
Material Matters with Grant Gibson

Rosalie McMillan and Adam Fairweather are co-founders of the materials, design and manufacturing house, Smile Plastics. They have a factory in South Wales which takes plastics and other materials traditionally classed as waste and transforms them into extraordinarily eye-catching ...  Show more

Plastic
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy

A couple of decades after Leo Baekeland invented the first fully synthetic plastic – Bakelite – plastics were pouring out of labs around the world. There was polystyrene, often used for packaging; nylon, popularised by stockings; polyethylene, the stuff of plastic bags. As the Se ...  Show more

Why We Fell In Love with Plastic
Discovery

Plastic waste and pollution have become a global problem but is there any sign of a global solution? And how did we allow this to happen in the first place? Materials scientist and broadcaster, Professor Mark Miodownik, explores how we fell in love with plastic, why we've ended u ...  Show more

Discarded (Official Trailer)
Discarded

Plastic is everywhere. It’s in our homes, grocery stores, oceans, soil and even our bodies. While the invention of plastic has advanced our world, it has seriously damaged our environment and our health. In this investigative four-part series, hosted by Emmy award-winning journal ...  Show more