Introduction to Plastics

Hello folks!

As you might have seen on the social media like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter, Team Recycler is posting stuff about plastic and plastic waste. Their new campaign called #LearnWithRecycler is all about plastic and I am here to introduce you all to Plastic.

Everyone in the world is familiar with Plastics. If you look around yourself, you won't took more than two seconds to notice things made up plastics. From the plastic cups to drink the tea/coffee to the laptop casing, water bottles, mobile phone casings, chairs, doors and windows, most of the things around us are made up of plastics or contains part of plastics. We're highly reliable on this versatile material for our daily routine activities. From Tiffin boxes to the vehicle we use to travel contains plastic in them. Without plastic, it is hard to imagine this modern world.

Let's get into little brief about plastics. Plastics are basically synthetic or semi-synthetic carbon polymers. They are malleable, therefore, can be moulded easily in any desired shape. Synthetic plastics are often derived from petrochemicals like crude oil.

Plastic posses various amazing properties which makes it superior to the traditionally used material to manufacture things. Plastic is very easy to manufacture and can be moulded in any given shape. Unlike other materials, it is very cheap and easily available. Its molecular structure is complex and because it is available so many types, it is possible to make different types of plastics according to the need.

Plastics are primarily of two types on the basis of their behaviour when they are exposed to heat: Thermoplastics and thermosetting. Thermoplastics are the plastics which when heated, do not goes undergo any chemical change in their composition and can be recycled and moulded again and again. Examples: Polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, PVC, etc.,

On the other hand, thermosets or thermosetting polymers can melt and mould only for once. The shape cannot be changed afterwards as these type of plastics do not undergo the reversible reaction when heated. Examples: vulcanization of rubber.

Another type of classification is done on the type of resin. The resin identification number can be seen on most of the plastic utensils and bottles etc., which indicates their type of resin. There are total seven such types in which primary six plastics have their own unique numbers from one to six digits while all the other plastics are included in the seventh category.

We will discuss more of these seven types in detail in the next post. Till then, keep recycling.