[droopyEyelids]

That's what I'm talking about :)

There are a bunch of answers to your question the way you asked it (eg electrical components, or chemical processes that can only be contained in certain polymers) but let's skip them.

The scale of human society requires -a lot of stuff-, and plastics make that possible. Building materials, clothing, tools, storage, etc.

It costs an order of magnitude more to manufacture something out of wood or metal or glass than to make it out of plastic. And then the thing would often be more fragile or cumbersome.

Plastics do such a good job here that we get caught up in the problems their overabundance creates. But without them, costs of living globally would be drastically higher and way more people would be suffering from dire want.

[kragen]

i'm interested to hear which electrical components and chemical processes you're thinking of?