BEND ME, SHAPE ME, ANYWAY YOU WANT ME. .

Plastic is a wonder material It is versatile, highly useful and is everywhere. We cannot think of modern life without plastic.

It is easy to dismiss plastic as cheap and nasty material that wreck the planet. But if you look around, the reality is different. If you want cars, toys, replacement body parts, medical adhesives, paints, computers, water pipes, fiber-optic cables, and a million other things, You will need plastics as well. You cannot wish away the plastic. We have to smartly live with it.

What is plastic? Consider one ethane molecule. It is just made up of 2 carbon atoms and 4 hydrogen atoms. We can call it as a 'Monomer'. Suppose, we join number of ethane molecules as a chain, we get a big molecule of 'polythene'. It is a polymer and the process is polymerization. If a number of chained molecules are combined together, we get 'plastic'. Polymer is like a train of many wagons of carbon. Polymer is based on hydro-carbons which are derived from things like petroleum, natural gas, coal etc,.

Plastic means flexibility. When plastic is heated, it melts. That is , molecular chains are easily broken. Once it becomes liquid, it is injected into mold, cools down, molecular chains are reformed; solidifies and remains strong.

There are huge variety of plastics. Some are soft. Some are hard like rock.
To name a few: cellulose, nylon, polyesters, polythene, polystyrene, pvc, poly carbonate , pet, fiberglass Teflon .....

Living with plastic
1. Educate about plastic. All of us must think twice before littering the environment.
2. Recycling: It takes about 25 plastic bottles to produce one new jacket. Recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60 w light bulb for six hours.
3. Develop bio-plastics or bio-degradable plastics that can break down more quickly into the environment.

Today, even money is plastic. Plastic bank notes; plastic credit cards. Plastic is deform-able, malleable; mold-able, colorful. It comes in all shapes and sizes, from overhead water tank to safety pin. Let us learn to live with the plastic.
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