Understanding Plastics and the Recycling of Plastics

Today we can not imagine a world without plastic. The versatility of this material allows it to be used to make virtually everything we use in our lives. Can you think of a toy that doesn't have some plastic in it? How about your car? The containers that hold and package our food and nearly every other product we use from soap, pet supplies and even medicine, are all made of plastic. Even the internal workings of our homes, appliances, medical and surgical equipment, and machinery all these things are made of plastic. Fences, siding for housing, indoor and outdoor furniture, carpeting, athletic tracks - the list goes on and on such that we really can not imagine our world today without plastic! The benefits of plastics are infinite!

The discovery and subsequent development of plastic has dramatically changed our lives. Because of its easy manipulation, resistance to corrosion, and low manufacture cost, plastics have replaced metal, wood, glass and other materials in all kinds of applications.
But is plastic infinite? While there are no limits to the creativity of the human mind, there are limits to our natural resources and the materials used to make plastic. Petroleum is the main source of plastics, but other raw materials such as coal, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, chlorine and sulfur are also major contributors. The mining and processing of these materials is costly, both in terms of the financial strain, and in terms of environmental devastation.

Plastic is the result of the physics of molecules. Long-chains molecules which contain small groups of recurring atoms linked together become one giant molecule chain. These chains them become entangled with each other in a process we call polymerization. When subjected to heat, these chains move apart allowing them to slide one over the other, still retaining their cohesiveness. This is what makes plastic so unique, versatile, and durable. Yet because they require considerable force to move them apart, this same phenomenon is what makes it so difficult to recycle plastic.

The challenge of plastic is to retain its infinite benefits while at the same time ensuring that it does not cause environmental harm.

Remember that plastic is the result of combining various raw materials. Raw materials are the essence of the earth's existence. We are taking and taking and taking the earth's raw materials with no consideration of how long (billions of years)

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