Plastic materials have become so numerous that you cannot go through a single day without touching something made of plastic. Toothbrushes, ballpoint pens, unbreakable dishes, cabinets and knobs for machines and appliances, light switches – all of these things and many more are made of plastic. It seems hard to believe that before 1869, there was no such thing as plastic. The first plastic, celluloid, was invented in 1869 by John Wesley Hyatt, (Meikle 5). A $10,000 prize had been offered to anyone
Plastics play a big role in our lives. The use of plastic has grown exponentially over the past decade. A few reasons why the demand for plastic is so high are due to its strength, very low-density, long shelf life, fabrication abilities and low cost. Plastic are used for packaging, industrial and automotive applications, artificial implants, healthcare, water treatment, conservation of land and soil, housing , security systems, and many others (Siddique, Khatib, & IKaur, 2007). The world’s annual
The Plastic Problem The causes and limitation of environmental impact. Environmentally, plastic is a disaster as most plastics are currently made from petroleum or non-renewable resources, extracted and processed using intensive techniques that negatively impact ecosystems. The manufacturing of plastic, aswell as its destructive means to produce pollution to air, land, water aswell as increasing exposure to toxic chemicals. Plastic packaging is a major source of waste and is regularly ingested
According to the Chemical Heritage Foundation, plastics are defined as “a group of materials, either synthetic or naturally occurring, that may be shaped when soft and then hardened to retain the given shape.” (1) Plastics are also considered to be polymers, a substance made of many repeating units. While there are many natural polymers, synthetic polymers have exceptionally useful properties that can be engineered for specific tasks. The first synthetic plastic was invented in 1869, a modified cellulose
Plastics are durable, lightweight materials that were invented in 1909. They are normally made from oil and natural gas. Using plastics to replace packaging materials such as metal and glass has allowed manufacturers to make packages that are more efficient. For example to bottle eight gallons of a beverage would take only two pounds of plastic but would take three pounds of aluminum, eight pounds of steel and 27 pounds of glass. The light weight of plastic packaging helps reduce transportation costs
Plastic, like most inventions, was accidentally invented. Charles Goodyear was a perfect example of how things accidently started. He started the process of making plastic by dropping India-rubber mixed with sulfur on a hot stove. The in the late 1930s, chemist Wallace Carruthers invented nylon, which is a synthetic polymer. Polymers have a high melting and boiling point. Synthetic polymers are also known by the word we use today, plastic. The evolution of plastic started during World War II. Ever
Plastic People Disney is famous for bringing fantasy to life. The Disney theme parks are among the most visited in the world. So shouldn’t it make sense that people would want to live in a similar idealistic sort of atmosphere? It just may be possible in the town of Celebration. Then again it may be just like living in a tourist attraction. Russ Rymer expresses his personal disapproval of manufactured communities in his essay, Back to the Future: Disney Reinvents the Company Town. The movie “Pleasantville”
Plastic Pollution and its Consequences. The world population is living, working, and vacationing along the coasts. They are contributing to an unprecedented tide of plastic waste. Pollution is defined as the process that alters a substance or molecule on planet earth, the pollution is caused by the physical contact of an organic decaying particle with a clean particle in the same spot, at the time the two particles join together is when occurs pollution in which the environment is greatly altered
as well as the lives the dwell within and around sources of water, and one of the biggest, and longest-lasting polluters within waters are plastics. Plastic, in its original form, was invented by Alexander Parkes in the mid 1800’s as an alternative to ivory. It was a durable, practical, and inexpensive material with a never-ending range of possible uses. Plastic became a staple during World War II, with the United States Army producing items such as “combs … mortar fuses, parachutes, aircraft components
Yasaman Sefididiznab Professor Margaret Neff ENG-112-44 1 December 2017 Plastic Pollution Products made from plastic are a part of everyday life, and plastics of any kind make our lives easier, and seemingly better. We drink water and juice from plastic bottles, work on our laptop using plastic keyboards, plastic utensil, plastic toys, and plastic bags. Plastic is so cheap that tons of plastics are designed to use just one time. Plastic is made from refined oil, and mixed with poisonous chemicals and cooked
Information Plastic plays an important role in our lives due to its ability to be functional in a number of different ways from plastic water bottles do the rubber on car tires. It seems as if everything is made of plastic in this day and age, but what happens once the consumers are done with the product? Statistics Canada showed in that 2012 Canadians produced, on average, 13.4 million tonnes of waste, 73% of which were sent for disposal. Of the 27% of waste that was recycled, a mere 17% of plastics was
Research Background The term of plastic has attracted more attention in the literature for the past 100 years since the introduction of the first industrial plastic at the latter part of the 19th century. John Wesley Hyatt, an American, finally came upon the solution in year 1869 with celluloid which makes its debut in plastic industry (McCord, 1964). Ever since after, there have been several milestones in the history of material science as the invention of plastic has, arguably, touched more lives
National Recycling Day. Recycling process involves a variety of solid waste including plastic. Plastics is the solid waste that cannot be decomposed, so the recycling process of this material can help reduce the quantities of solid wastes in landfill and reduce the pollution of water and air. This material needs to go through several phase of process before it become new grade of plastic in suitable format. In general, plastic recycling process can be classified into five stages which are sorting, washing
Plastics and Our Environment Works Cited Missing Plastics today play an important part in cutting-edge technologies such as the space program, bullet-proof vests and prosthetic limbs, as well as in everyday products such as beverage containers, medical devices and automobiles. Recycled plastics are used to make polymeric timbers for use in picnic tables, fences, and outdoor toys, thus saving natural lumber. Plastic from 2-liter bottles is even being spun into fiber for the production of carpet
Ocean Plastic Pollution I chose to discuss Ocean Plastic Pollution. I retrieved an article from the LiveScience.com which is a website that covers scientific news. The author of the article I chose, “Plastic Trash in Oceans May Be ‘Vastly’ Underestimated”, is Jeanna Bryner who is the LiveScience Managing Editor. She is part of the LiveScience organization. This article was published April 27th, 2012. The mission of the report is to inform the general public that plastic debris in the ocean is increasing
Ocean, Home of Plastics Passing through an aisle of a regular supermarket, customers will observe that most of the products in there are made of or packed with the base material plastic. Usually, the bag that will be used to carry the products bought from the supermarket will also be made of plastic. It is important to consider that every piece of plastic that has ever been created still exists today in some structure. A study from the World Economic Forum and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation anticipated
We are living on a plastic planet. Starting from the air that we breathe, the food that we eat, and the soil that we live on, plastic is everywhere. It may be hard to believe that a substance that was made for convenience would turn into a product that could ultimately destroy our planet. Plastic is a non-biodegradable material that has been mass produced for our convenience since the 1950’s. Today, over 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into the ocean each year and is estimated to increase to
The convenience and availability of plastic bags in Singapore have resulted in serious environmental issues such as the release of harmful greenhouse gases and threat to marine life. [1]Zero Waste Singapore provides the statistics of the amount of waste produced in Singapore which supported the research that plastic bag was one of the main sources of waste in Singapore. Together with Zero Waste Singapore, [2]an article from the Singapore Environmental Council has identified and mitigated the wastage
documentary Addicted To Plastic mainly portrays the harmful effects of the non-recyclable plastics to marine lives, human beings and the environment. It also suggests that plastic pollution, as an on-growing problem around the world may be avoided as there has been certain new technologies which could help human beings to reproduce useful products from the plastics. In the documentary, the audiences follow the narrator, who is also the filmmaker, along his journey of investigating plastic issue and how five
How to fight plastic pollution Problems and Uses of plastic Plastic is a material in our earth that affects us in lots of ways. If you look around you, you probably will notice that a lot of things around you are made of plastic. And this isn't a bad thing, because plastic is a very strong, light, and cheap resource. However, plastic can affect is in some bad ways as well. For example, plastic tends to get into the ocean very often, which ends up killing many sea life because they mistake it for