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Pampered Plastic

by Shashie Agnihotri

Pages 2 and 3 of 49

Pampered Plastic
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Plastic is a chain of synthetic polymers that was invented in the mid-19th century. Its popularity skyrocketed in the 1970s as it was a lighter, more durable and affordable substitute of paper.
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Since the 1950s, 8.3 billion metric tons of plastics have been produced, and half of that in the past 15 years alone. This is because..
Good insulation and low thermal conductivity.
Good impact resistance and they do not rust.
They are light in weight and are chemically stable.
Good transparency and wear resistance.

Easily moulded into different shapes and sizes.




Poor dimensional stability and can be easily deformed.
Low processing cost.
So, What is the Problem?
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# Petroleum based disposable plastic is difficult to recycle.
# We have to add new virgin materials and chemicals to it to do so.
# There are a limited number of items that recycled plastic can be used for.
# Small items like straws and spoons are difficult to recycle.
Plastics don’t really break down; they just break up.
There are very few microorganisms that can decompose plastic and return the elements back to the nutrient pool. Instead, over time, sun and heat slowly turn plastics into smaller and smaller pieces until they eventually become microplastics. These microscopic plastic fragments, no more than 5 millimeters long, are hard to detect.
They end up in the water, eaten by wildlife, and inside our bodies. They’ve even made their way up to the secluded Pyrenees mountain range and down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
We produce 300 million tons of plastic each year worldwide, half of which is for single-use items. That’s nearly equivalent to the weight of the entire human population.
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