Plastic Facts - Information, Benefits and Negative Effects

Facts about Plastic

• Every piece of plastic that was ever produced still exists.
• Fathers of the modern plastic industry were chemists Leo Baekeland, Alexander Parkes, Jacques E. Brandenberger, Chemist Roy Plunkett and Daniel Fox.
• First plastic compounds were made by processing naturally created rubber plants. This process was abandoned after chemist managed to create recipes for fully synthetic plastic.
• The word “plastic” was introduced in 1925, approximately 100 years after first chemist started working with natural rubber.
• Before WWII the most popular plastic was Bakelite and its close cousin Catalin. They were used everywhere, from children toys to the parts for large WWII bombers.
• One of the last truly important plastic compounds that were discovered is Kevlar (1965)!
• In 2010, 31 million tons of plastic waste was generated only in United States - 14 million tons in containers and packaging, 11 million tons as durable goods and appliances, and almost 7 million tons as non-durable goods (plates, cups, cheap kitchenware, etc.).
• Eight percent of United States plastic waste is recycled, but category of bags, sacks and wraps has larger recycling rate of almost 12%.
• In the year 2002 only 360 million of bottles was recycled, out of 9.1 billion bottles that were disposed.
• Over 15 million plastic bottles are used in Great Britain every day, but only around 2.5% of European plastic bottles are recycled.
• Plastic bottles are made from two types of plastic – 23% of them are made from Polyethylene terephthalate (PET, also used for food packaging, cosmetics) and 62% of them are made from High-density polyethylene (HDPE, also used for milk, detergents, shampoos, bottled water, juices).
• Buried plastic materials can last for minimum of 700 years.
• Over 4 million plastic bottles is used by American every hour!
• Plastic represents 8% of total American waste weight, and 20% of its volume.
• 1050 milk jugs can be recycled into one 6-foot plastic park bench.
• Standard weight of one PET 2 liter bottle was reduced by 28% between 1970s and now (it went from 67 to 48 grams).
• U.S. annually creates over 9 billion plastic bottles. Around two thirds end up in landfills or incinerators.
• The largest plastic recycling facility in the U.S. is Wellman Inc, located in South Carolina. It annually process over 2.5 billion plastic bottles, turning them into polyester fiber compound known as Fortrel EcoSpun.
• Small plastic cup can take 50 to 80 years to decompose.
• 11% of household waste is plastic, and 40% of it is plastic bottles.
• Plastic bags, bottles, and other garbage that end up in the ocean kill around 1 million sea creatures every year.
• Plastic bags are one of the most common plastic items that are manufactured today – over 300 per person, per year.
• Recycling plastic is much more energy efficient than incinerating it.
• 9-15 billion of plastic shopping bags are used each year in Canada alone. On average, one of those bags is used for five minutes before it is discarded.
• Plastic waste can travel large distances over air and sea. Canadian plastic shopping bags are found as far as Scotland.
• In 2009, 2.45 billion of PET and HDPE bottles were recycled.
• Recycling one single plastic bottle saves enough energy to ring 60-watt light bulb for six hours!

Plastic Benefits - The Advantages of Plastic

Since its inception, plastic enabled countless advances in our industry and way of the life. Created to be light, durable, chemically resistant, non-reactive to outside influences, and easy to manufacture, plastic was a perfect building material for countless articles that are used not only by ordinary users in their daily affairs but also in aeronautics, construction industry, electronics, packaging, transportation, energy conservation, scientific components and other.

Here are some of the most important benefits of using plastic:

Building and construction industry – From the moment famous Bakelite appeared in the first decade of 20th century, plastic became one of the most used building blocks of modern construction industry. This is only surpassed by packaging industry, which uses more plastic than construction industry. The most common uses for plastic in construction is in pipes, valves, bathroom units, flooring, siding, panels, insulation, plumbing fixtures, windows, doors, railings, glazing and gratings. They are used so much because of their awesome abilities to resist corrosion, natural elements and are also very light and easy to handle.

Packaging - Versatile, durable, flexible, rigid, and light plastic was embraced by packaging industry with both hands. By employing various manufacturing techniques plastic can be shaped and molded into any desirable form, have any color, or any physical property. Plastic transport containers are not unly used for household items such as shatterproof bottles and child resistant packages, but also in medicine (biohazard waste disposal, sensitive containers, transport molds that hold their cargo in firm grip), research, and countless other fields.

Transportation – Plastic is very popular material that is today part of all transport vehicles on the world. Because of its toughness, durability, lightness, and ease of coloring, plastic can be found in fenders, trunk lids, bumpers, housing for headlights and mirrors, hoods, doors, wheel covers, and many more other places. By introducing plastic, manufacturers were able to significantly reduce the weight of their cars, airplanes and other vehicles, enabling them to be much more power efficient and easier to service. Off course, smaller means of transportations such as bicycles, roller skates, kayaks, canoes, skateboards, snowboards, surfboards, motorcycles have managed to use all that plastic can offer us. In public transportation, plastic is used almost everywhere – seats, handholds, carpeting, interior panels, and sometimes even polycarbonate windows.

Electronic – Thermal and insulation properties of plastic made it ideal to become backbone of the electronic industry. Because modern plastic recipes will not change its form after they are heated, manufacturers use plastic regularly for circuit boards, chips, coffee makers, mixers, microwave ovens, hair dryers and even refrigerators.

Recycling – Recycling plastic saves money and energy, reduces the amount of plastic in the landfills or seas, reduces the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that are created during production of “virgin” plastic, and more.

Plastic Disadvantages - Negative Effects of Plastic

Today, you can hardly look around you and not spot some item that is made entirely from plastic or has some plastic ingredient. This only proves that from its inception up to now plastic has managed to become popular building material of millions of useful items, but it is not perfect. Plastic has several disadvantages that prevent it from becoming universal building block of modern human civilization, and because of that many governments strictly control its use and create complex law that govern its creation, recycling and environmental impact of waste plastic and chemicals that are used in its creation.

Here are some of the biggest disadvantages of plastic:

Durability – Plastic is light, moldable, sturdy, and can have countless forms, but one of the most known features is its durability. Plastic is artificially created polymer compound which can survive many centuries before nature is able to degrade it (some degrade into basic ingredients and some only divide into very small pieces). This troublesome ability of plastic doesn’t have great immediate impact on our environment, but its continuous dumping into seas and land will eventually create problems for future generations. Even with all this durability, plastic products are not indestructible and it cannot be used as a basic building block for everything we need.

Environmental Harm – Ever increasing plastic production since 1950s managed to saturate world with waste plastic product that can cause big effects on our environment. Decomposing of plastic product can last from 400 to 1000 years with newer “degradable” compounds, but before that degradation can happen waste plastic will continue to clog our waterways, oceans, forests, and other natural habitats that are filled with animals who mistake dangerous plastic for food. Chemical dangers are also high, because both creation and recycling of plastic produce toxic materials of many kinds.

Chemical Risk – Not only that creation and recycling of plastic can cause serious environmental risk, but some of the additives that are infused in plastic can cause permanent harm to our metabolism. Chemicals such as phthalates and BPA are widely used as an additive that prevents degrading of plastic structure, but they also interfere with our natural hormone levels which can cause serious problems to both males and females (lower testosterone levels in men, and premature girl puberty).

Choking Hazard – Plastic is one of the most popular building materials for small items. This is most evident in toy industry, where vast majority of children toys is manufactured with plastic. These toys and small plastic objects of many uses can easily get into children’s hands (especially babies and toddlers) that unknowingly put them in their mouth. To prevent these serious accidents, governments have implemented detailed set of rules which force manufacturers to clearly label their plastic products and warn users of the possible chocking potential. Another problematic plastic product that can cause serious injuries or death are plastic bags (grocery or trash bags)who can sometimes end up wrapped around children faces, disrupting their breathing.