{"id":619,"date":"2018-02-26T14:49:09","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T14:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.plastikcity.co.uk\/blog\/?p=619"},"modified":"2018-03-05T10:38:41","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T10:38:41","slug":"7-reasons-you-should-love-plastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.plastikcity.co.uk\/blog\/7-reasons-you-should-love-plastic\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Reasons You Should Love Plastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week\u2019s\u00a0Feast of Saint Valentine is past. The celebration of romance may have turned our minds towards relationships and light-hearted fun. In the commercial\u00a0arena, however, the political climate surrounding our industry is toxic. Why then should anyone love plastic?<\/strong>
\n<\/p>\n

Synthetic plastic has been with us for over a century. It was\u00a0Leo Baekeland<\/a>\u00a0(the\u00a0Bakelite<\/a>\u00a0inventor) who coined the term \u2018plastics\u2019.<\/p>\n

However, it seems that a century later there is a populist \u2018war on plastic\u2019.<\/p>\n

What have plastics ever done for us?<\/p>\n

Here are 7 reasons you should love plastic \u2013 facts provided by\u00a0The British Plastics Federation<\/a>\u00a0(BPF).<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Plastic\u00a0is\u00a0lightweight<\/strong>\u2013 Over the lifetime of the average car, lightweight plastic parts save around 3,000 litres of fuel.\u00a0[2]<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. It\u2019s durable<\/strong>\u2013 Plastic pipes are designed to last for more than 100 years and also reduces the overall failure rate.\u00a0[3]<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Plastic saves water\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 The production of a plastic bags consumes less than 4% of the water needed to make a paper bag.\u00a0[4]<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. It helps protect products\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 Products sold loose suffer from huge in-store waste in some cases leading to losses of 20%.<\/li>\n
  5. Plastic prevents food waste\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 wrapping Bananas in a modified atmosphere bag extends shelf-life by 2 to 3 days.\u00a0[5]<\/a><\/li>\n
  6. It\u2019s recyclable\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 all plastic can be recycled but it is not always technically or economically possible. If plastic can not be recycled the calorific value of plastic can be recovered through energy from waste plants. Recycling one tonne of plastic bottles saves 1.5 tonnes of Carbon.\u00a0[6]<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. Plastic only uses 4% of the world\u2019s oil production<\/strong>\u2013 the rest is used for transport, energy, heat or is burnt.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Furthermore, the BPF states \u201cthe environmental cost of replacing plastic with alternative materials would be nearly 4 times greater\u201d.\u00a0[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

    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, horn, stone, bone, glass, leather, metal and ceramic.<\/p>\n

    \"Hardie<\/p>\n

    Hardie Polymers<\/em>
    \n0141 952 1900<\/em>
    \n    Website<\/em><\/a>
    \n    Email<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Last week\u2019s\u00a0Feast of Saint Valentine is past. The celebration of romance may have turned our minds towards relationships and light-hearted fun. In the commercial\u00a0arena, however, the political climate surrounding our industry is toxic. Why then should anyone love plastic?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101012,"featured_media":620,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[269,270,271,263,119,10,81],"class_list":["post-619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plastikcity-blogs","tag-bpf","tag-hardie-polymers","tag-marine-litter","tag-marine-plastic","tag-plastic-material","tag-polymer","tag-recycling","post-preview"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t