Actually, it's not even that as most of the modern increase in life expectancy / fall in mortality occurred before the invention of plastics.
The former largely concluded by the 1920s. Plastics were largely invented during the 1930s, and were introduced as products over subsequent decades, at an ever-increasing rate.
Which is to say: whatever lead to the increase in life expectancy was largely not plastics. Rather it was increased general hygiene, sanitation, food quality, refrigeration, waste removal, and sewerage systems.
I'd mentioned this only a few months back, note especially my follow-up comment which similarly points out another frequently-touted factor which also fails the temporal sequencing test:
Actually, it's not even that as most of the modern increase in life expectancy / fall in mortality occurred before the invention of plastics.
The former largely concluded by the 1920s. Plastics were largely invented during the 1930s, and were introduced as products over subsequent decades, at an ever-increasing rate.
Which is to say: whatever lead to the increase in life expectancy was largely not plastics. Rather it was increased general hygiene, sanitation, food quality, refrigeration, waste removal, and sewerage systems.
I'd mentioned this only a few months back, note especially my follow-up comment which similarly points out another frequently-touted factor which also fails the temporal sequencing test:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41020120>