10 Important Facts About Plastics That You Should Know

Plastics are made from crude oil and natural gases - it is widely used in our daily life. Of the oil produced from oil refineries, plastics production uses only 4%. The rest are used as fuel for transport and heating.

• EXCELLENT PROTECTION: products made from plastics are both strong and light. Certain plastics can absorb very high impact energy (bullet proof).
• CONSERVES FOOD: food left unprotected can spoil easily. Plastics films, bottles and containers - store food and retain it's freshness over a longer period.
• TRANSPARENCY: allow objects to be displayed, yet protecting them.
• LIGHTWEIGHT: compared to other materials, things made from plastics are lighter and it contributes to the environment by not using so much fuel to transport them.
• NON-TOXIC: it is not as what the media claims. Plastics are chemically inert materials. Thus, they do not change into dangerous products over time or when in contact with other materials.
• RESOURCE-FRIENDLY: plastics bags are less voluminous compared to paper bags. Thus, each plastics bag uses less resources to produce than paper bags.
• HIGH RESOURCE RECOVERY: plastics retain its usefulness even after its intended use - because plastics comes from crude oil, it produces more energy than coal and wood when incinerated.
  
• COST-EFFECTIVE: when producing something complex, plastics is probably the only material that could be manufactured fast and economical.
• LITTER: of all things that is made from plastics, it only represent 12% in volume of a landfill.
  
• PLASTICS DON'T DEGRADE: plastics were not meant to degrade over short period - imagine parts of a car degrading and breaking down after 10 years.