What is a plastic bottle made of, it is interesting to know?

It is known to everyone and is used as a packaging for a wide variety of products: water, juices, soft drinks. What is made of a plastic bottle? Such packaging plays an omnipresent role in our consumers' lives. With the growth of our awareness of the environmental issues surrounding plastic, many have become interested in the life cycle of this material, from production to subsequent disposal to landfill or processing. Awareness of this process can make consumers think more about how they use and manage waste.

Composition, basic properties

What is made of a plastic bottle? Everything begins with the receipt of raw materials - oil production, which comes from distant deposits. After receiving it for further processing, all is loaded into containers, to tankers and sent to factories. What is made of a plastic bottle? From oil. When heating and mixing hydrocarbons with chemical catalysts, which causes polymerization, a plastic is obtained. In addition, during processing, various components are distinguished from it. Further, the refinery receives gas, fuel oil and other products. What are plastic bottles made of? Most of them are made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET, known as plastic). One of the important chemical parameters is the viscosity, which is determined by the size of the polymer molecules. What are plastic bottles made of, how are they made of this material? Polyethylene terephflate is widely used in Russia for the production of various types of blanks, the so-called "preforms". Further after heating from them, forms of various kinds are produced (blown out), first of all plastic bottles.

What is made of a plastic bottle, How else can it be replaced? Not everyone knows that some producers, taking care of the environment, use bioplastics from plant materials (Bioplastics). To do this, they are first processed to form polymers. Then follows the process of transformation, resulting in a new bioplastics material. It is believed that this is better for the environment, since it does not require the extraction and processing of oil, non-renewable resources. However, such a replacement from plant materials quickly decomposes and is not stored for a long time. In addition, in cases of long exposure, bottles made of such material may deform and leak. There is also the opinion that in the situation with bioplastics too it does not do without environmental problems. Its production requires large areas of agricultural land for growing grain crops. In addition, they consume large amounts of water, fuel and other resources.

Fighting garbage

Throughout the world, the production and consumption of plastic containers are constantly increasing. As a consequence, garbage is stored, which does not decompose. In this case, plastic bottles are a very widespread form of waste worldwide. However, discarded, they do not all get to landfills. World oceans are filled with such garbage, which poses a serious threat to many marine organisms. Instead of total destruction, plastics actually break up into very small segments that can be consumed by the inhabitants of the oceans. The small town of Concord , Massachusetts, is the first settlement in the United States to ban the sale of water in plastic bottles.