How plastic have changed the world socially and economically project introduction?
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Answer:
Plastics have transformed everyday life; usage is increasing and annual production is likely to exceed 300 million tonnes by 2010. In this concluding paper to the Theme Issue on Plastics, the Environment and Human Health, we synthesize current understanding of the benefits and concerns surrounding the use of plastics and look to future priorities, challenges and opportunities. It is evident that plastics bring many societal benefits and offer future technological and medical advances. However, concerns about usage and disposal are diverse and include accumulation of waste in landfills and in natural habitats, physical problems for wildlife resulting from ingestion or entanglement in plastic, the leaching of chemicals from plastic products and the potential for plastics to transfer chemicals to wildlife and humans. However, perhaps the most important overriding concern, which is implicit throughout this volume, is that our current usage is not sustainable. Around 4 per cent of world oil production is used as a feedstock to make plastics and a similar amount is used as energy in the process. Yet over a third of current production is used to make items of packaging, which are then rapidly discarded. Given our declining reserves of fossil fuels, and finite capacity for disposal of waste to landfill, this linear use of hydrocarbons, via packaging and other short-lived applications of plastic, is simply not sustainable. There are solutions, including material reduction, design for end-of-life recyclability, increased recycling capacity, development of bio-based feedstocks, strategies to reduce littering, the application of green chemistry life-cycle analyses and revised risk assessment approaches. Such measures will be most effective through the combined actions of the public, industry, scientists and policymakers. There is some urgency, as the quantity of plastics produced in the first 10 years of the current century is likely to approach the quantity produced in the entire century that preceded.
Answer:
Explanation:-
PLASTIC HAS CHANGED THE WORLD:
There has been no material more revolutionary than modern plastic. Used in almost every single industry in a vast range of ways thanks to its versatility, high durability and ability to be moulded into whatever shape necessary, no material has changed (and in many ways, shaped) the world like plastic has.
As far back as 1869, John Hyatt, in his search for a substitute for ivory, discovered that plastic could be moulded into many different shapes, while imitating natural substances. However, modern plastic first came about in 1907, when Bakelite was invented by Leo Baekeland – it was modern in that it was completely synthetic. There were no natural molecules in it. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, production costs lowered dramatically, paving the way for the mass production of household plastic items.
Since then, plastic took over the world. Thanks to its ability to remain sterile while acting as a container, plastic was used in the formation of bottles for items such as milk, which no longer had to be delivered in glass bottles. In the food industry, plastic has had an amazing, incalculable effect. Raw meat can be kept in plastic packaging to prevent potential diseases, while the use of plastic trays to keep food fresh has helped to diminish waste in stores.