"Plastic a material that our planet can not digest"

Rio de Plastico: in our ocean

Today the word "plastic" is almost synonymous with contamination. And for good reason: this material, which lasts hundreds of years because it is not biodegradable, has become the number one enemy of ecologists. Although today, plastic is considered the enemy of marine animals, because of the enormous damage it causes them, every year 100,000 die because of plastic, UV radiation coming from sunlight is the main agent that degrades plastic PVC or PET plastic

bottles and polypropylene trays and cups take about a thousand years to degrade, they are the most polluting objects, although if it is buried for a long time it lasts even longer. In contrast, plastic bags degrade an average of 150 years, faster than bottles, because they are thinner.

The degradation time of the plastic depends on the type and the environmental conditions to which it is exposed: sunlight, oxygen, mechanical agents.

In the case of the oceans are thousands of tons of plastic that contaminate it and have a devastating effect on the marine fauna, the action of the waves accelerates this process and as a result the larger fragments are breaking into smaller pieces. More than 8 million tons of plastic are thrown into the oceans every year. Most come from the mainland: trash on beaches, objects thrown on the toilet and what drag the rivers. It is estimated that there are currently more than 5 billion pieces of plastic floating in the oceans. In some places that garbage has been grouped, forming islands. The largest is three times the size of France. 400 million tons of plastic are produced in the world each year. 40% is plastic that we use only once and throw it away (like grocery bags, bottles and food wrappers).

The most pessimistic experts believe that by 2050 all the plastic in the seas will weigh more than all the fish. There is no doubt that the situation is alarming and that something must be done. We should rethink the massive use of plastic for disposable objects due to the serious consequences that it has globally.

What is Plastic:

The term "plastic" comes from the Greek "plastikos" which means that it can be molded. It refers to the malleability, or plasticity, of the material during manufacture, which allows it to be melted, pressed or extruded to obtain different shapes,

such as sheets, fibers, plates, tubes, bottles, boxes, etc., it is one of the materials that it takes longer to decompose and at the same time it is one of the most used in today's societies. Plastics are organic materials, just like wood, paper or wool. The raw materials that are used to produce plastic are natural products such as cellulose, coal, natural gas, salt and, of course, oil. They have become the preferred modern material because it balances the needs of today.

Who invented Plastic:

It arose as a result of a contest held in 1860, when the US billiard manufacturer, Phelan and Collarder, offered a reward of $ 10,000 to anyone who obtained a substitute for the natural ivory that was used to make the balls of that time. billiards. The amateur inventor John Wesley Hyatt accepted the challenge and began to experiment with cotton and nitric acid, creating a new material: cellulose nitrate. It was a malleable material but one that could be made solid. The only problem was the noise: when billiard balls made of cellulose nitrate hit each other they produced a loud rumble, so they could not be used for this sport. However, the invention of Hyatt - which he named "celluloid" - would soon have another much more important use.