The notice offered a $10,000 prize to anyone who could invent a substitute for ivory in billiard balls. Advertisements even claimed the new material was “saving the elephants.” At the time, ivory was prized for giving billiard balls their ideal weight, roll, and rebound, but a single elephant tusk yielded only four or five high-quality balls. Mahim Reti Bunder beach in Mumbai, India lies buried under heaps of plastic waste, as the Arabian Sea washes tonnes of garbage ashore during the monsoon season on August 22, 2025. Black and low-income communities living near plastic production sites, she notes, bear the brunt of the pollution through higher medical bills and chronic health issues. “As taxpayers, we’re the ones footing the bill for the cleanup of all this plastic waste.