Benefits of plastics-Boon The considerable growth in plastic use is due to the beneficial properties of plastics.

These include: Extreme versatility and ability to be tailored to meet very specific technical needs. Lighter weight than competing materials, reducing fuel consumption during transportation. Extreme durability. Resistance to chemicals, water and impact. Good safety and hygiene properties for food packaging. Excellent thermal and electrical insulation properties. Relatively inexpensive to produce. Plastics makes up around 7% of the average household dustbin. Plastic is very useful in the building and construction, electronics (laptops wouldn't work well if they were made from glass), packaging (gladwrap), transportation industries. Very easy to make - water bottles, plastic bags, pens, cups etc etc The main advantages of plastic materials are also the reason why plastic is such a problem. It lasts forever and it is very cheap to make. When I say it lasts forever, I mean it does not biodegrade. There is a flotilla of plastic the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean. It gradually photo-degrades into tiny pieces that enter the marine food chain. Plastic is good, light, strong and cheap to produce. There are many advantages to using plastic. It does not decompose but it can instead be recycled. This is done more easily than producing more plastic. Unlike aluminum cans, plastic bottles can be re-used and stored over and over again. Plastic is usually not breakable and it is see-through. It's lightweight and odourless. Plastic comes from a natural resource (oil) but CAN'T be re-made into bottles (but they can be re-made into other items- WEIRD!) It takes a long time to break down... Advantages The advantages of plastics are: Light weight, chemically resistant, can easily be shaped, durable, easy to colour in the mass, thermically insulating, acoustically insulating, electrically insulating, energy saving. Advantages of pmma 1.Good response to temperature changes, 2. excellent resistance to many chemicals, .An excellent insulator, the surface resistivity of pmma is higher than that of most plastics, 4.Despite the hard conditions of heat, cold, sunlight, and humidity, pmma maintain their

original appearance and color. 5. shatter-resistant,earthquake safe, and burglar-resistant. 6.At the same strength and durability, it is only half the weight of glass. What is the alternative? These intellectuals who recommend used of paper bags in lieu of plastics are unaware that it is more hazardous to environment because one needs to fell a tree for an A3 size of paper that means deforestation. Plastic is a substitute to wood & paper saving trees.

Plastics are a unique material that can substitute metal, wood, paper and what not. The substitute of plastics for metal items in automobiles helps you save fuel. Substitution of plastic furniture to wooden ones saves environment from felling trees. Same is the case with paper and we blame plastics for polluting the environment. It is not the plastic but we who are undisciplined in disposing the plastics. Plastics are one material that can be recycled to any number of times.

In India success in recycling of consumer level plastics will be governed by the profitability of the recycling idea. There are millions of urban Indians who scour our cities for an income from waste. They play an insufficiently celebrated role in waste management. The authorities should recognize their role in waste management. They should educate, propagate and implement waste segregation. Thats first step in both recognizing a problem and those that may constitute a solution.

Plastic Roads: For us, plastic mean carry bags. Everybody is aware of the futility of banning its use. One promising solution to the problem is from Prof. R Vasudevan of Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai. He thought up the idea of shredding plastic waste, mixing it with bitumen and using the polymerized mix in road construction. Chennai Corporation reacted with commendable speed. In Nov, 2002, it laid out a short stretch of road to test the idea that was proved successful. Chennai alone generates close to 150 tons of plastic waste everyday and imagine if all over India implements this plastic-waste-for-road-laying idea, which could be a win-win situation: better roads, money for the poor and cleaner environment. Instead, we talk of a blanket ban on plastics.

Liquid fuel by releasing hydrocarbons locked in plastics. This news was broke out on Mar 9, 2003, by UNI. After all, from oil plastics came and to oil they could return. I just break up and make up a few bonds which ultimately results in the conversion of plastic waste into fuel, said Prof. Alka Umesh Zadgaonkar of Raisoni College of Engineering,

Nagpur. UNI added thus: Demonstrating her invention at Mavlankar Auditorium here over the week end, Zadgaonkar put one kg of plastic waste in a reactor which was converted into mixed fuel within three and a half hours. In the second stage, the mixed fuel was subjected to the process of fractional distillation, which yielded 800 ml of petrol. When we behave almost like a beggar for getting fuel from Arabian countries, we cant think of implementing this project but talk of a blanket ban on plastics.

Approaching the problem from another direction, Sriram Institute of Industrial Research, New Delhi has sought to create solid fuel from plastic waste. This report quotes Dr R K Raina as saying: What we have done is to explore ways to improve upon the properties of plastic as fuel. We prepared different types of fuels by simply adding wastes like sawdust, waste paper, leaf, and coal dust. All the blended fuels showed marked improvements in ease of burning. This is because wastes help to increase the porosity of plastic that traps oxygen, helping it to burn. The end product is a readily saleable fuel brick. The Institute says the process is so simple that villagers can recycle plastics by mixing them with bio wastes at 110 deg. C. and earn sizeable incomes. It is estimated that India generates 5600 tons of plastic waste daily. That is bound to grow. Still, we talk of bringing a blanket ban on plastics.

Advantages The durability, strength, low cost, water and chemicals resistance, welding properties, lesser energy and heavy chemicals requirements in manufacture, fewer atmosphere emissions and light weight are advantages of plastic bags. Many studies comparing plastic versus paper for shopping bags show that plastic bags have less net environmental effect than paper bags, requiring less energy to produce, transport and recycle; however these studies also note that recycling rates for plastic are significantly lower than for paper.[2] Plastic bags can be incinerated in appropriate facilities for waste-to-energy. Plastic bags are stable and benign in sanitary landfills.[3] Plastic carrier bags can be reused as trash bags or bin bags. Plastic bags are complimentary in many locations but are charged or "taxed" in others.