Hello, it's Manveen, bringing you an episode from a new podcast series from The Times,

in partnership with Rolex and its perpetual planet initiative, Planet Hope.

In this series, Adam Vaughn, the environment editor for The Times,

asks why our planet is changing so rapidly and meets leading experts from around the world

who are trying to turn the tide. Through its perpetual planet initiative,

Rolex supports individuals and organisations who go above and beyond to safeguard and preserve

our planet for the next generation.

It's the year 1907, the year of many great moments in history, from the birth of one of Mexico's

greatest artists, Frida Kahlo, to historic scientific breakthroughs, as Aber Einstein begins to apply

laws of gravity to the theory of relativity. But in today's episode, we turn to another groundbreaking

moment in 1907 that transformed modern history. The moment when the first fully synthetic plastic

was pioneered. It was the early 1900s when Belgian chemistry marked here, Leo Bakeland,

combined two chemicals, formaldehyde and phenol under heat and pressure to create synthetic

plastic, which he christened Bakelite. For over a century now, plastic has revolutionised

the way we live. In its early uptake, the possibility is a plastic gave people an almost utopian

vision of a future with abundant material wealth thanks to an inexpensive, safe, sanitary substance

that could be shaped by humans to their every whim. But it wasn't long before the initial excitement

for plastic shifted and we began to see the toll that this man-made material can have on our natural

world. From overflowing landfills, dangers of chemical pollution, and plastic debris destroying

ocean life, the race to curb plastic waste has never been so urgent, but the race might be coming

into an end. With these calculations for polyethylene category, which is a third of all the plastics

out there, with our technology we can address somewhere around 25% of that. This is a way for

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