Treating plastic waste as a resource rather than a problem is an important change that needs to happen over the coming decades

Plastics are incredibly useful materials with extremely diverse properties, allowing a multitude of different applications that benefit our lives.

Bottles and forks aside, in the medical field alone plastics have been used for artificial heart valves, medical implants and devices, controlled drug release, specialist surfaces and coatings that repel water, organic batteries – the list is endless.