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TIL plastic was invented in 1907. Since 1950, humanity has produced 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic waste; 9% of it is recycled, 12% is incinerated, 79% ends up in a landfill or in the environment. Majority of the world's plastic waste from the developed world is exported to Southeast Asia.

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4X1eX TIL At a radiology conference in 1974, Lee Rogers, a physician who had mistakenly swallowed a soda can tab during a basketball game, addressed the hazard to the medical community, which lead to a redesign of a non-removable tab that reduced untold amounts of litter and injury to humans and wildlife.
9Erp TIL Genghis Khan’s chief adviser was a captured scholar named Yelu Chucai. His contribution to the Mongol Empire was to suggest that the Mongols not kill everyone, but tax them instead.
4kDM6 TIL In the 1920s, young women known as the "Radium Girls" worked painting watch dials with radium-based luminous paint. Unaware of the dangers, they often ingested the radioactive substance, leading to severe health issues and deaths.
oB9KE TIL that Oxford University tradition is that all students wear a carnation as well as academic dress to their exams. The colour of the carnation is white for the first exam, red for the last and pink for each one in between.
6LnW TIL of “spite houses,” buildings constructed solely to irritate and spite neighbors.