If you were living before the 1950s, you'd be a lot less dependent on plastics. You'd have seen the arrival of this "magic material" that can make almost anything, for very little cost (to the consumer).
Whether for sanitary pads and nappies, electronics, pre-packed or ready-made food packaging, plastic made its way into our lives at an unprecedented pace. Just how quickly did we make plastic our number one manufacturing material?
Since the 1950s, more than 9.1 billion tons of plastic has been produced... by 2014, plastic production had grown no less than 20 times. That made for roughly 448 million tons of plastic in 2015 alone (we are not taking into account how much plastic is already present, only how much virgin plastic is being manufactured).