Plastic
What is the cost of disposable plastic to environmental health?
*Living Organisms, particularly marine animals, can be harmed by ingesting plastic waste, entanglement, or through exposure to chemicals with plastics.
*When drifting in ocean plastics also absorb toxins that are harmful to animals that ingest them.
*Effects on humans include disruption of various hormonal mechanisms.
*Bisphenol A (BPA)
*Estrogen Mimicking Molecule
Which plastic resin numbers are recovered more often for recycling then others?
#1 and #2 are more often recovered.
When did mass production of plastic begin?
Mass Production beginning in the 1940’s and 1950’s
What is the definition of microplastic?
Refers to all types of tiny plastic particles smaller than 5mm.
How are biodegradable plastics helpful to the environment?
* If composted in an industrial composting facility it can break down
* It is sourced from a natural material and decreases the amount of synthetic plastic made from nonrenewable fossil fuels
Why do we have plastic resin codes on the bottom of plastic containers?
For the plastic industry to quickly be able to distinguish the broad groups of plastic.
What plastic resin ID number is often never recycled?
#7
Since China decided to stop taking our plastic waste, what are the new destinations of our plastic waste?
Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia
What is the definition of microbeads?
Microbeads are a kind of microplastic with specific function for scrubbing or exfoliating.
Give at least 3 suggestions from the article “Life without Plastic is Possible. It’s Just Very Hard” to cut down on plastic use with alternatives?
Reusable Water Bottles, set of metal or bamboo utensils, cloth bags, steel straws, Glass baby bottles, Iphone cases made of flax, baskets for groceries, silk dental floss, wooden toothbrushes
What can plastic be made of?
Most commonly derived from fossil fuels, however, an array of variants are made from renewable materials like corn or cellulosics.
Recycling is one of the 5 r's. What place does recycling have if you put the 5 r's in order of priority?
5th or last
What is the difference between secondary and virgin (primary) microplastics?
Secondary microplastics are the result of larger pieces of plastic breaking down into smaller pieces.
Virgin (Primary) microplastics are manufactured as microbeads, capsules, fibers or pellets
What are synthetic fibers? What are they made out of?
Synthetic fibers are those that are man-made, unlike natural fibers that are derived from natural sources.
What can you do to reduce the pollution of microfibers?
*Reduce or avoid the purchase of garments made of synthetic fibers
*Place your synthetic garments in a filter bag or use a laundry ball that collects the fibers
*Wash on a gentle cycle
*Wash on a colder temperature of full loads
What are the 7 physical and chemical properties that help us to determine which resin id number an item should be in?
*Rigidity
*Surface Appearance
*Transparency
*Density
*Resin
*Flammability
*Recyclability
In what year did China start to cut way back on plastic trash imports?
2017
When was the first natural plastics made and by whom?
Mesoamericans around 1600 BC
How do synthetic fibers affect the environment and human health?
* Synthetic fibers are consumed by ocean wildlife
*they are vessels for toxins
*we eat the animals and the plastic and toxins end up in us
*can affect the people created the fabrics and clothing
What is the order of the 5r's in the 5r pyramid?
Refuse
Reduce
Reuse
Rot / Recycle
Describe the evolution of Plastics.
*The development of plastics has evolved from the use of
*Natural plastic materials (ex. chewing gum, shellac)
*To the use of chemically modified natural materials (ex. natural rubber, nitrocellulose, collagen)
*And finally to completely synthetic molecules (ex. bakelite, epoxy, polyvinyl chloride)
What are 3 reasons that China decided to cut down on plastic trash imports?
*The Chinese government started to worry about all the trash coming in.
* A lot of plastic was contaminated with stuff that made it difficult and expensive to recycle.
*Some of the plastic was hard to recycle and thus not profitable to import.
What is the difference between biodegradable and compostable?
biodegradable can break down in industrial composting
compostable can break down in a home compost bin in less then 180 days
List 6 common synthetic fibers found in clothing items.
Polyester
Nylon
Acrylic
Rayon
Fleece
Elastane
Acetate
From the movie wasted, what was the order of 4 solutions in the food waste pyramid to reduce food waste?
Feed Humans
Feed Animals
Renewable Energy
Compost