If Benjamin Braddock, the anti-hero of “The Graduate,” were to have a glimpse of 2024 from his parents’ 1968 pool party, he might have listened to his father’s friend after all.

The world is far more plastic that might have been imagined in 1954 or 1968. Plastic existed back then – there have been various forms of it since the 19th century. But as it became cheaper to make, it began to replace glass and metal, more expensive materials.

Glass, in particular, got phased out of a lot of products. As I mentioned in No. 25, many bottles and jars were converted to plastic, particularly soft drinks. But mayonnaise, salad dressing and a whole range of other products were made lighter by the use of plastic containers. Plastic replaced glass in some windows and picture frames.

One form of plastic, polystyrene foam, is better known by its trademark name, Styrofoam. It’s used for cheap coolers and was the insulation of choice for online shippers before the sealed plastic air bubbles came into use.

Another big chance came in the ubiquity of plastic shopping bags. A Swedish engineer developed the first ones in the 1960s – within 30 years, they were replacing paper bags for groceries, trash and anything else that needed carrying.

By the 21st century, a trip to the supermarket included as many as a dozen plastic bags, all containing plastic bottles and jars, paid for by ‘plastic,’ which became a slang term for credit cards.

Unfortunately, the plastic bags and bottles went from convenience to nuisance to crisis.

The problem is that plastic doesn’t biodegrade. It photodegrades, meaning it can take 1,000 years for the light and heat to wear down the bag into nothingness. And that disintegration can be toxic, meaning it’s not particularly suitable for landfills.

There is also the mess they make. On a winter train ride into New York, you can’t go very far without seeing unmitigated plastic bags flapping among the bare branches. And there are folks who make a living recovering bottles and other detritus from the sea, in part because fish and aquatic mammals die when they ingesting the plastics.

So plastic, while still used in so many more permanent items, is in its outcast days as a packaging material. Plastic bottles, like glass bottles of old, come with a deposit charge of 5-10 cents that you get back when you return them to the store or a collection site.

In many places, you either can’t get a plastic bag in a supermarket or you pay an extra 5 or 10 cents for it (for some reason, that doesn’t count the bags that hold produce or meat). Instead, the store wants you to bring your own bag and reuse it.

That bag is usually made out of plastic.