IN THE 1967 film The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman's character, Benjamin Braddock, receives a single word of advice about his future from a well-meaning friend of his parents: "Plastics." Our fearless, environment-saving duo of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Environment Minister Peter Garrett were 10 and 14 respectively when the film came out, and it seems plausible that they sucked this message in with their generational DNA but were too young to recognise its satirical intent.