What if there were no plastic?

Look around you. Can you spot something made of plastic?

Maybe a toy, a cup or a pen. Plastic is everywhere! What if there were no plastic at all?

Take a look around the room you're in. The pen in your hand, the lid on a water bottle, the case of a tablet, the toys on the floor: chances are, lots of them are made of plastic. NOAA, the U.S. ocean agency, points out that you can probably spot plastic all around you, from clothes to glasses to lunch containers.

So what if plastic had never been invented? What would things be made of, and what might be better or worse? This lab is a thought experiment: we follow the clues instead of guessing wildly.

Plastic is woven into modern life: packaging, electronics, construction, medical supplies, fishing gear and clothing all depend on it. Britannica notes that most car interiors today are made largely of plastic parts.

This thought experiment removes plastic and asks three questions. What would toys and bottles be made of? Which older materials did plastics replace, and why? And can new plastics made from plants or microbes keep the benefits while easing the waste problem? Established facts and reasoned ideas are labeled separately.

Plastic is light. It does not break easily. It can be made into almost any shape.

That is why we use it for so many things.

The word plastic first meant "easy to bend and shape." Plastics are made of very long chain-like molecules called polymers. Heat and pressure can mold them into nearly any shape, from a thin bag to a tough bottle.

Plastic is light, inexpensive and lasts a long time. That's useful: NOAA notes that durable plastic medical devices help keep many people safe and healthy. In 2018, people in the United States threw away 35.7 million tons of plastic, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Britannica defines plastic as a polymeric material that can be molded or shaped, usually by applying heat and pressure. Plasticity often comes with other useful properties: low density, low electrical conductivity, transparency and toughness. Examples include lightweight PET drink bottles, flexible PVC garden hoses, insulating foamed polystyrene food containers and shatterproof polymethyl methacrylate windows.

The EPA reports that the United States generated 35.7 million tons of plastic waste in 2018, 12.2 percent of its municipal solid waste. Containers and packaging made up the largest share, over 14.5 million tons.

Now imagine all the plastic is gone. Toys might be made of wood or metal.

Bottles might be glass. Some things might be heavier or break more easily.

Before plastic, people made things from natural materials such as wood, metal, stone, bone, horn and ivory tusks. In a world without plastic, toys might be wooden or metal, drinks might come in glass or metal, and bags might be paper or cloth. These are ideas.

Some things might get heavier or more breakable, and some might cost more, because nature only supplies so much of each material. On the other hand, there would be no plastic litter floating in the ocean. Every choice of material has trade-offs.

Plastics displaced many traditional materials. The Science History Institute quotes the author Susan Freinkel: plastics took the place of steel in cars, paper and glass in packaging, and wood in furniture. Remove plastic and those older materials would return, along with their limits: weight, breakage, cost and the finite supply of natural materials such as ivory and tortoiseshell.

The environmental picture would change too. Plastic marine debris would disappear, but the wider effects of making and transporting heavier substitutes are not simple to predict. Those consequences are reasoned ideas, not results.

Plastic is very tough. That is good for a toy.

But in the sea, plastic does not rot away like natural things do. It breaks into tiny bits that stay a very long time.

The same things that make plastic so useful also make it a problem. Plastic is built to last. In the ocean, it doesn't break down the way natural materials do. Instead, sunlight, salt water and waves crack it into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics, which may never fully go away.

NOAA says plastic items are the most common type of marine debris in our ocean, waterways and Great Lakes. Plastic gets there through littering, trash that isn't collected properly, and rainwater washing it off streets.

Britannica notes that virtually all current plastics are derived from petroleum and are generally not biodegradable, so plastic refuse is very durable. NOAA explains that, exposed to sun, salt water and waves, plastic fragments into microplastics, which are extremely difficult to remove and may never fully go away. It enters waters through limited trash disposal, improper collection, littering and stormwater runoff.

Recycling recovers only part of it. The EPA reports that 3 million tons of U.S. plastic waste were recycled in 2018, a rate of 8.7 percent; 27 million tons went to landfills and 5.6 million tons were burned with energy recovery. PET bottles and jars were recycled at 29.1 percent.

Scientists are making new plastics from plants and tiny living things.

Some of them can break down. People are still working to make them better.

Scientists are designing bioplastics, plastics made from plants or by tiny living things called microbes. One kind, called PLA, is made from sugars and starches from plants. Some bioplastics can break down, which is called being biodegradable.

But it isn't easy. Bioplastics are still a tiny part of all the plastic made, and they're expensive to produce. NOAA warns that plastics labeled "biodegradable" may break down in special industrial composting sites, but not quickly in a home compost pile, in soil or in the sea.

Bioplastics are moldable materials made from compounds derived from or synthesized by microbes or genetically modified plants. The first known, polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), was discovered in 1926 by Maurice Lemoigne in the bacterium Bacillus megaterium. Polylactic acid (PLA) is polymerized from lactic acid made by microbes fermenting plant sugars and starches.

Britannica notes that bioplastics are an insignificant share of world plastic production, held back by low yields and high cost, and that landfills deliberately minimize biodegradation, so keeping biodegradable plastics out of ordinary waste is a challenge. NOAA adds that bio-based or biodegradable plastics are not designed to break down quickly in soil or marine environments.