Kids how is plastic made

It makes bottles that are lightweight and strong — useful when bottles are used for food and drinks. Pellets of PET and recycled plastics are loaded into special ovens and heated to degrees centigrade so that it melts.

The tubes are then re-heated and placed in bottle shaped moulds — where high pressured air inflates them to fill the mould and to take their final shape. Sometimes, to make sure that the bottom of each bottle has a flat shape to help it stand up straight, another piece plastic is joined to the bottle during the moulding process.

The bottles must be cooled instantly or they will lose their shape as the warm plastic will creep downwards. Sometimes cold water or liquid nitrogen might be circulated around the moulds, or air is blown at room temperature. Once ready, the finished bottles will be boxed up, ready for dispatch. The final step is putting a cap onto the bottle. Alexander Parkes , an English inventor , created the earliest form of plastic in It was hard but flexible and transparent, and he called it "Parkesine.

Plastic is filling up the landfills and sometimes if you burn it, it releases toxic fumes. If we do not recycle, it becomes waste. Plastics are mostly petrochemicals , made from petroleum , a type of oil. Engineers refine the petroleum which goes through a heating process. It develops ethylene and propylene , which are the chemical building blocks for many plastics. These chemicals are then combined with other chemicals to produce a polymer.

Most plastics are durable and degrade very slowly, as their chemical structure renders them resistant to many natural processes of degradation. There are differing estimates of how much plastic waste has been produced in the last century.

By one estimate, one billion tons of plastic waste have been discarded since the s. Others estimate a cumulative human production of 8. Much of this material may persist for centuries or longer, given the demonstrated persistence of structurally similar natural materials such as amber.

The Ocean Conservancy reported that China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam dump more plastic in the sea than all other countries combined. The presence of plastics, particularly microplastics, within the food chain is increasing. In the s microplastics were observed in the guts of seabirds, and since then have been found in increasing concentrations.

The long-term effects of plastic in the food chain are poorly understood. Prior to the Montreal Protocol, CFCs were commonly used in the manufacture of polystyrene, and as such the production of polystyrene contributed to the depletion of the ozone layer.

In a new report "Plastic and Climate" was published. According to the report plastic wiil contribute Greenhouse gases in the equivalent of million tons of Carbon dioxide CO2 to the atmosphere in In current trend, annual emissions will grow to 1. The effect of plastics on global warming is mixed. Plastics are generally made from petroleum. If the plastic is incinerated, it increases carbon emissions; if it is placed in a landfill, it becomes a carbon sink although biodegradable plastics have caused methane emissions.

Due to the lightness of plastic versus glass or metal, plastic may reduce energy consumption. This is much higher than the energy needed to produce many other materials, e. Municipal solid waste incinerators also normally include flue gas treatments to reduce pollutants further.

Ethane and propane are treated with high heat, in a process known as cracking. Pellets are shipped to factories to be melted and molded into water bottles, food packaging, auto parts, medical devices and much more. Like paper and glass, plastic is the product of a complex process. Plastics are polymers. A polymer is a large molecule made of smaller ones, called monomers.

These monomers are derived from materials found in nature, such as natural gas, oil and plants. The bottom line is it takes a lot of labor and expertise to manufacture plastics. Watch and learn how corrugated pipes are made using this process.