Plastic pollution is clear to see – but the invisible threats need our attention too

Analysis: What does living in an increasingly plastic-saturated world mean for us?

The long-term effect of human consumption of plastics requires considerable further research (Getty)

Until the early 20th century, the world was completely free of manufactured plastic. Metal, glass, leather, wood, stone, bone and ceramics were our species’ most useful everyday materials.

The first entirely synthetic plastic was Bakelite, invented in 1907 in New York by Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland.

Just over 100 years later, our species has engineered a new world highly dependent on plastic and almost impossible to imagine without.