Kids future



In 2016, an anonymous Australian successfully underwent a complicated surgical process. There was not much news about it, except that the patient was a 4-year-old who swapped genders.

No one disclosed if a boy had just become a girl, or vice versa. Either way, a strange story preceded this episode. 

Way back in 1907, Leo Baekeland, a chemist, invented a new type of synthetic plastic

This material, named Bakelite, was one of the game changers of the modern age.

It was eventually accompanied by PVC, polyester, nylon, and other synthetic materials, produced by the petrochemical industry from fossil fuels.

Media reporters, business leaders, and eminent scientists applauded the innovative plastics that smoothly conquered the world. The Second World War gave a nice push to the boom, which went on for decades before some nasty side effects drew serious attention.

1. Due to the durability of the new materials, plastic waste tends to accumulate, not disintegrate. Thus, for instance, the oceans around the world turned into colossal dumps of plastics.

2. Some chemicals commonly found in plastics, (e.g. bisphenols) damage the hormone system of humans and other species. Such hormone disruptors – also called endocrine disruptors – routinely leach from plastic materials... 



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