Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez, “The Problem with Plastics–and How They’re Changing the Environment”
Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez is a PhD candidate at the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University
This Ted Talk was originally given in 2022, and it is available under a CC BY-ND 4.0 Creative Commons License.
Plastics are everywhere — they’re in our favorite electronic devices, they package our food and insulate our homes. Today, the total mass of plastic is twice the total mass of all living organisms on the planet, and it’s starting to change the processes that allow the Earth’s climate system to work. Plastic pollution researcher Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez breaks down the consequences of producing all of this plastic at every stage, from fossil fuel extraction to the disposal of single-use plastics in landfills and oceans. The first step to breaking free of our plastic problem is admitting we have one.
