Is there a material more controversial than plastic? Carrying a plastic lunchbox to work can feel like a small act of guilt these days. Plastic has become one of the most demonized materials of our time. And yet it's everywhere, holding up daily life. We sat down with Clara Carelli, Group SHE, Sustainability & Quality Director at Beaulieu, and Ricardo Calumby, Business Development Manager at Polychim, to ask a simple question: is plastic really the problem? Or are we?
We often talk about plastic as if the material itself is the problem. The real question is what happens to it after use. If we want to reduce environmental impact, we need to design materials and products for responsible use, collection, and recovery.In 1907, Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite, widely regarded as the first fully synthetic plastic. After World War II, rapid population growth, rising living standards, urbanization, and industrialization triggered an unprecedented increase in the demand for materials of all kinds. Plastics were one of the fastest-growing materials of this era. Between the 1950s and 1970s, global plastics production surged from just 2 million tons to around 35 million tons. While plastics replaced traditional materials in countless applications, their greatest contribution was enabling entirely new products, technologies, and industries that reshaped modern life.
"That rapid growth came with a downside," Clara explains. "Plastics took off before science and regulation had time to catch up. We knew these materials performed exceptionally well, but we had far less understanding about issues such as migration of certain additives, long-term exposure and what happens to products at the end of their useful life. Many of the perceptions and challenges surrounding plastics today are rooted in decisions made decades ago, when we simply didn't have the knowledge, technologies or systems we have now."
Today, a world without plastic is hard to imagine. Lightweight, versatile and affordable, it is used in countless products: from the phone you're reading this on or your glasses to medical syringes, home insulation and clothing.
Yet public perception is often shaped by plastic's most visible, lowest-value applications: packaging and disposable products. Its overall footprint is also often underestimated or misunderstood. By mass, plastic accounts for around 1% of the materials the world consumes each year and around 4% of material-related greenhouse gas emissions.*
Plastic becomes an environmental problem when it escapes the systems designed to collect, recover, or safely dispose of it. Like any material, it needs to be managed responsibly after use. “Swap plastic for another material and the ocean would probably be no cleaner” Clara points out. “The material matters, but so does what happens after use. What ultimately determines whether something ends up polluting the environment is how it's handled after use.”
In developed economies, industrial waste is often generated in controlled environments, may have economic value, and is subject to strict environmental collection, treatment and regulatory systems. The bigger challenge starts when products leave the factory and enter everyday life. At that point, recovery depends on collection systems, local infrastructure, product design, and public participation. Where these systems are weak or littering is widespread, the risk of plastic escaping into the environment rises sharply.
That’s the thinking behind Nxtera, Beaulieu's circular polypropylene range, built with Polychim Industrie and Pinnacle Polymers around three complementary pillars:
On top of using waste as feedstock, Beaulieu keeps pushing the carbon math down too: Polychim's baseline PP already sits at 1,00 kg CO2-eq/kg PP (cradle to gate), well below industry average**, while the Nxtera circular range reaches 0,2 kg CO2-eq/kg PP (cradle to gate)***.
Recycled PP shows up more than most people realize: in paint buckets, automotive parts, construction, and sports goods. Beaulieu uses recycled PP in some products in our portfolio, such as some of our fibres, needle felt, synthetic turf and Distriplast corrugated sheets. Regulation is also pushing the industry forward. The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2025/40) introduces minimum recycled-content requirements, which could accelerate the shift towards circular materials.
When we asked Clara and Ricardo what they’d most like to see change, they didn’t reach for anything dramatic.
"I'd like more awareness, that people understand both the possibilities and limits of plastic. There's a lot of misconceptions out there," says Clara. "Regulatory pressure would help drive that. Only then can we really transform the whole economy."
Ricardo points to design: "Brands use more material than needed to stand out on the shelf. Simpler, more standardized designs would make a real difference, for every material, not just plastic." He adds a second point: closer partnership across the value chain.
The takeaway isn't that plastic gets a free pass - pollution is real, and so is the work still ahead. It's that the question the industry, and the public, should be asking isn't "How do we get rid of plastic?" It's "How do we manage it properly?"
*UNEP, Global Resources Outlook 2019; (2024), Environmental Science & Technology, “Replacing Plastics with Alternatives Is Worse for Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Most Cases,” 58(6), 2716–2727
**Plastics Europe, Eco-profile for Polypropylene (PP) (2014); Plastics Europe, updated Polyolefin Eco-profiles (2026). Plastics Europe – Eco-profiles
*** LCA , cradle to gate, performed in conformance with ISO 14040/44 and following the requirements of EN 15804, independently verified by a third-party. More information can be found on https://www.polychim-industrie.com/en . All LCAs are available upon request.
We have a good example: working with one of our packaging clients, we helped them move away from polystyrene in one of their packaging applications and replace it with polypropylene instead, reducing the environmental footprint while meeting all performances requirements.NEWS
27/08/2026
