Plastic

Plastics are typically organic polymers of high molecular mass, but they often contain other substances. Plastics are usually synthetic but many are partially natural. Polyethylene is a common plastic. Due to the low solubility in water and the low chemical inertness, plastic has a low level of toxicity Plastics are moldable. Some types of plastic are thermoplastic, ploystyrene, and polyethylene. Plastics are very common in peoples everyday lives. The majority of plastic we use now days are man made. Plastics are very useful around the house and are crucial for the containment of all of our foods, waters, medications, etc. These are common shapes and types of plastics:



Plastics are made from [|oil]. Oil is a carbon-rich raw material, and plastics are large carbon-containing compounds. They're large molecules called **polymers**, which are composed of repeating units of shorter carbon-containing compounds called **monomers**. Chemists combine various types of monomers in many different arrangements to make an almost infinite variety of plastics with different chemical properties. Most plastic is chemically inert and will not react chemically with other substances due to the form that they have. We use plastic everywhere and in everyday materials.

**Biodegradable** plastics break down (degrade) upon exposure to sunlight (e.g., ultra-violet radiation), water or dampness, bacteria, enzymes, wind abrasion, and in some instances rodent pest or insect attack are also included as forms of biodegradation or environmental degradation. Some modes of degradation require that the plastic be exposed at the surface, whereas other modes will only be effective if certain conditions exist in landfill or composting systems. Starch powder has been mixed with plastic as a filler to allow it to degrade more easily, but it still does not lead to complete breakdown of the plastic. Some researchers have actually genetically engineered bacteria that synthesize a completely biodegradable plastic, but this material, such as Biopol, is expensive at present. The German chemical company BASF makes Ecoflex, a fully biodegradable polyester for food packaging applications. You should not be eating plastic. Plastic cannot be destroyed by water alone.

=The Truth About Plastic=

If you know where to find a good plastic-free shampoo, can you tell Jeanne Haegele? Last September, the 28-year-old Chicago resident resolved to cut plastics out of her life. The marketing coordinator was concerned about what the chemicals leaching out of some common types of plastic might be doing to her body. She was also worried about the damage all the plastic refuse was doing to the environment. So she hopped on her bike and rode to the nearest grocery store to see what she could find that didn't include plastic. "I went in and barely bought anything," Haegele says. She did purchase some canned food and a carton of milk--only to discover later that both containers were lined with plastic resin. "Plastic," she says, "just seemed like it was in everything."

She's right. Back when Dustin Hoffman received the most famous one-word piece of career advice in cinema history, plastic was well on its way to becoming a staple of American life. The U.S. produced 28 million tons of plastic waste in 2005--27 million tons of which ended up in landfills. Our food and water come wrapped in plastic. It's used in our phones and our computers, the cars we drive and the planes we ride in. But the infinitely adaptable substance has its dark side. Environmentalists fret about the petroleum needed to make it. Parents worry about the possibility of toxic chemicals making their way from household plastic into children's bloodstreams. Which means Haegele isn't the only person trying to cut plastic out of her life--she isn't even the only one blogging about this kind of endeavor. But those who've tried know it's far from easy to go plastic-free. "These things are so ubiquitous that it is practically impossible to avoid coming into contact with them," says Frederick vom Saal, a biologist at the University of Missouri. Vom Saal is a prominent member of a group of researchers who have raised worrisome questions in recent years about the safety of some common types of plastics. We think of plastic as essentially inert; after all, it takes hundreds of years for a plastic bottle to degrade in a landfill. But as plastic ages or is exposed to heat or stress, it can release trace amounts of some of its ingredients. Of particular concern these days are bisphenol-a (BPA), used to strengthen some plastics, and phthalates, used to soften others. Each ingredient is a part of hundreds of household items; BPA is in everything from baby bottles to can linings (to protect against E. coli and botulism), while phthalates are found in children's toys as well as vinyl shower curtains. And those chemicals can get inside us through the food, water and bits of dust we consume or even by being absorbed through our skin. Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 92% of Americans age 6 or older test positive for BPA--a sign of just how common the chemical is in our plastic universe.

Scientists like vom Saal argue that BPA and phthalates are different from other environmental toxins like lead and mercury in that these plastic ingredients are endocrine disrupters, which mimic hormones. Estrogen and other hormones in relatively tiny amounts can cause vast changes, so some researchers worry that BPA and phthalates could do the same, especially in young children. Animal studies on BPA found that low-dose exposure, particularly during pregnancy, may be associated with a variety of ills, including cancer and reproductive problems. Some human studies on phthalates linked exposure to declining sperm quality in adult males, while other work has found that early puberty in girls may be associated with the chemicals. Does that mean even today's minuscule exposure levels are too much? The science is still murky, and human studies are few and far from definitive. So while Canada and the Democratic Republic of Wal-Mart are moving to ban BPA in baby bottles, the Food and Drug Administration maintains that BPA products pose no danger, as does the European Union. Even so, scientists like Mel Suffet, a professor of environmental-health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, say avoiding certain kinds of plastics is simply being better safe than sorry. As researchers continue to examine plastic's impact on our bodies, there's no doubt that cutting down on the material will help the environment. Plastic makes up nearly 12% of our trash, up from 1% in 1960. You can literally see the result 1,000 miles (1,600 km) west of San Francisco in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling mass of plastic debris twice the size of Texas. The rising cost of petroleum may get plastic manufacturers to come up with incentives for recycling; current rates stand at less than 6% in the U.S. But the best way to reduce your plastic impact on the earth is simply to use less. Here's how. You can avoid plastic bottles and toys labeled with the numbers 3 or 7, which often contain BPA or phthalates, and steer clear of vinyl shower curtains and canned foods--especially those with acidic contents like tomatoes. Vom Saal counsels that the cautious should also avoid heating plastic in microwaves. But get rid of the stuff altogether? "It's hard to go all the way," says Haegele, who, 10 months into her experiment, is leading a mostly plastic-free life. Although she still uses a plastic toothbrush, she's experimented with her own toothpaste (made of baking soda, cinnamon and vodka; for the recipe, go to her blog, lifelessplastic.blogspot.com She has used vinegar for conditioner and is searching for a decent shampoo that doesn't come in a plastic bottle. She has tried soaplike bars of shampoo, but they make her hair feel sticky. Plus, they sometimes come wrapped in--you guessed it--plastic.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1821664,00.ht

Plastic is what is used to forge zip-lock bags, grocery bags, water bottles, binders, toys, iPhone cases, Dre Beats, mechanical pencils, computer covers, chairs, some windows, sports equipment, sun glasses, reading glasses, live-strong bracelets, and millions upon millions of more things. The point is that plastic can be used to make anything. Just the other day I was watching a episode of Mythbusters and they were attempting to live on a desert island with only duct tape. The connection here is that duct tape is coated in a polyethylene and polyethylene is the most common type of plastic. If you are curious to how the episode ended, they ended up living pretty comfortably on the island with hammock made of duct tape and shoes made of duct tape. They then escaped the island in the boat made from bamboo and duct tape.

During the 1960s, there was great enthusiasm for plastic and paper garments as futuristic clothing such as plastic raincoats, which were far lighter and cheaper than mackintoshes or garbardin raincoats, and could also be manufactured in bright colors or made transparent or translucent. Modern clothing commonly uses flexible plastic materials, in the form of both flexible plastic sheetings and plasticized fabric. Rigid plastic components are also used to replace components which would have formerly been made of metal, bone, rubber, or other materials, for example in the form of buttons, shoulder pads, collar stiffeners and zipper fasteners. Plastic components are used extensively in footwear. Plastic materials are also commonly used in protective clothing. Plastic clothing has also become the subject of fetishistic interest, in a similar way to rubber clothing.
 * Plastic clothing** -- as distinct from clothing made from plastic-based artificial fibers -- has existed almost since the creation of flexible plastics, particularly as a material for waterproof clothing.

Most plastics are produced from [|petrochemicals]. Motivated by the finiteness of petrochemical reserves and possibility of [|global warming], bioplastics are being developed. Bioplastics are made substantially from renewable plant materials such as cellulose and starch. [|[6]] In comparison to the global consumption of all flexible packaging, estimated at 12.3 million tonnes, estimates put global production capacity at 327,000 tonnes for related bio-derived materias

Toxicity
Due to their insolubility in water and relative chemical inertness, pure plastics generally have low toxicity. Some plastic products contain a variety of additives, some of which can be toxic. For example, plasticizers like adipates and phthalates are often added to brittle plastics like polyvinyl chloride to make them pliable enough for use in food packaging, toys, and many other items. Traces of these compounds can leach out of the product. Owing to concerns over the effects of such leachates, the European Union has restricted the use of DEHP (di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate)and other phthalates in some applications. Some compounds leaching from polystyrene food containers have been proposed to interfere with hormone functions and are suspected human carcinogens Whereas the finished plastic may be non-toxic, the monomers used in the manufacture of the parent polymers may be toxic. In some cases, small amounts of those chemicals can remain trapped in the product unless suitable processing is employed. For example, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has recognized that vinyl chloride, the precursor to PVC, as a human carcinogen. You should not be eating plastic.

Thermoplastics and thermosetting polymers
There are 2 types of plastics: thermoplastics and thermosetting polymers. Thermoplastics are the plastics that do not undergo chemical change in their composition when heated and can be moulded again and again. Examples include polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Common thermoplastics range from 20,000 to 500,000 amu, while thermosets are assumed to have infinite molecular weight. These chains are made up of many repeating molecular units, known as //repeat units//, derived from //monomers//; each polymer chain will have several thousand repeating units. Thermosets can melt and take shape once; after they have solidified, they stay solid. In the thermosetting process, a chemical reaction occurs that is irreversible. The vulcanization of rubber is a thermosetting process. Before heating with sulfur, the polyisoprene is a tacky, slightly runny material, but after vulcanization the product is rigid and non-tacky.

**Just the Facts**

 * 31 million tons of plastic waste were generated in 2010, representing 12.4 percent of total MSW.
 * In 2010, the United States generated almost 14 million tons of plastics as containers and packaging, almost 11 million tons as durable goods, such as appliances, and almost 7 million tons as nondurable goods, for example plates and cups.
 * Only 8 percent of the total plastic waste generated in 2010 was recovered for recycling.
 * In 2010, the category of plastics which includes bags, sacks, and wraps was recycled at almost 12 percent.
 * Plastics also are found in automobiles, but recycling of these materials is counted separately from the MSW recycling rate.