When BBC’s “Blue Planet II” was broadcast in October 2017, the series narrator and naturalist Sir David Attenborough added his voice to calls from people across the world to take plastic pollution seriously and the intervening period has seen increased discussion and debate around plastics and strident calls for plastics, and single use items in particular, to be banned. 

Yet, in less than a year, since the virus which causes the respiratory infection Covid-19 was first detected in in the city of Wuhan, China in late 2019, the safety and wellbeing of individuals and entire populations has rested on plastics for the manufacture of a host of personal protective equipment and medical devices and we now face the question of how to protect human life without compromising our ecosystem.

Our reliance on plastics raises challenging technical and ethical questions for us as individuals and societies amid reports of second waves of Covid-19 and increasing risk of outbreaks of other viruses yet to be detected.

But what are plastics?  How are they used in keeping us safe? What harm can they do? Why are don’t we use something else? How are facemasks made?

To mitigate the risk plastics pose to the environment and address these questions, the School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering’s Polymer Processing Research Centre is pleased to invite you to an online event designed to support better informed decision making on the use and disposal of plastics and improve understanding of the important role they play in healthcare.