Question

what are the use of plastic and what is the effect on environment

Answer 1

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 2

Uses

Plastic is material consisting of any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic compounds that are malleable and so can be molded into solid objects.

Due to their low cost, ease of manufacture, versatility, and imperviousness to water, plastics are used in a multitude of products of different scale, including paper clips and spacecraft. They have prevailed over traditional materials, such as wood, stone, horn and bone, leather, metal, glass, and ceramic, in some products previously left to natural materials.

In developed economies, about a third of plastic is used in packaging and roughly the same in buildings in applications such as piping, plumbing or vinyl siding.[3]

Other uses include automobiles (up to 20% plastic[3]), furniture, and toys.[3] In the developing world, the applications of plastic may differ — 42% of India's consumption is used in packaging.[3]

Plastics have many uses in the medical field as well, with the introduction of polymer implants and other medical devices derived at least partially from plastic. The field of plastic surgery is not named for use of plastic materials, but rather the meaning of the word plasticity, with regard to the reshaping of flesh.

Effects

Plastic pollution is a global problem. The majority of plastic winds up in landfills where it remains indefinitely.

No one exactly knows how long plastic takes to break down, but it is believed to take hundreds or even thousands of years. It is not just the accumulation of plastics that harms the environment—it is also the fragments and toxins released during photo-decomposition that pollute our soil and water.

Some plastics are designed to degrade quickly, such as Oxo-Degradables and while they may become less noticeable, they are still present in the environment. For example, in ocean environments, plastic fragments are taken in by filter-feeding organisms. When tiny plankton ingest plastic, animals up the food chain can bioaccumulate larger quantities.

So while some plastic may be designed to degrade quickly, it is still present in the environment. Floating plastic waste that can survive thousands of years in water can serve as a transportation device for invasive species that disrupt habitats.

Thus, like a coin, plastic also has two sides- one is bad and one is good.

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