Plastic
What is plastic?
Plastic is a human-induced product. It is made from oil and natural gas.
It was invented to get thrown away after using it, but we have now found out that it was a big mistake, because that it pollutes the environment. There are 2 kinds of plastic. Thermoplastic and Thermoset plastic. Both kinds of plastic are hard at a low temperature and melts at a hot temperature. The difference is that Thermoplastic can be melt down infinite, but Thermoset plastic can only be melt down once. Thermoplastic can be melt down infinite because the polymers in the plastic has weak bonds that can easily be tared apart. Thermoset plastic has really strong bonds and it can't be tamed apart.
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Oil isn’t a sustained resource but scientists have found out that we can make plastic from sugar beets and maize. That is a fantastic substitute because that is't biodegradable too.
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Plastic is used in toys, clothes, cars, paint and much more so it would almost be impossible to replace it with non-plastic products, but we have to try.
Microplastic
Slowly the plastic in the sea will turn into microplastic. The sun, wind and the constant waves make the plastic crack into small pieces. The plastic will never disappear, but it will turn into so small pieces that you cant even see them.
But the microplastic is really bad for the animals. The fish think that it is alga and they eat it. They can’t digest the plastic so their stomachs gets filled up with plastic, an they end up dying because of hunger. Some of the plastic pieces can be that sharp, that they are poking through the skin of the fish and leaves an open wound.
It's really bad for us too, because we're eating fish with microplastic in them. We don’t know if it affects our bodies, but it properly isn’t good for us. A lot of plastic contains chemicals that can course cancer and other sicknesses.
Solve the problem
We are producing more plastic than we can pick up, so cleaning up isn’t the solution of the plastic problem.
One thing we could do is to make natural products that has the same qualities as plastic. We could make it from biodegradable materials.
But the best thing we can do is to avoid that the plastic ends up in the nature.
We must be better at recycling. We could forbid some of the types of plastic which is difficult to re-use or we could make a new and better law that actually works and makes people open their eyes to see reality.
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Some of the small things we can do ourselves are :
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- Never throw plastic in the nature
- Use a reusable waterbottle, instead of buying a new all the time
- Store food in a box instead of plastic bags
- Use a fabric bag instead of a plastic bag
- Take the 20 Days Plastic free Challenge - Click the button to read more