Plastics

All of the Organic Chemistry that we have worked through so far has been done to give us a deeper understanding of a common chemical in our everyday lives - plastic.

This video gives a good overview of the history of plastics:

Plastics are an amazing technology, but their use has led to soooooo many problems. What is the future of plastics? How can we continue to use plastics without creating such a big waste issue for our planet?

There is a variety of plastic used in our everyday life:

The main advantage of plastics are their ability to be recycled...but this isn't the case for every plastic (for example, polystyrene). Also, recycling is expensive, and we do not do it as often as we should. That has led to a new movement - REFUSE single-use plastics.

Over the next two weeks, we will be looking at the past, present and future of one plastic - polythene (also called PE, polyethene and polyethylene).

• How was it discovered?
• How is it made?
• How is it used? Why?
• How has its production changed over time? Why?
• How has its use changed over time? Why?
• What is the future for polythene?