Plastic Fantastic
Plastic. What is it?
• What items do we use that are made
from plastic?
• How long have we been using plastic?
• Where does plastic come from?
Oil
• Oil is a limited resource
– Over 30 billion barrels of oil are consumed in the
world every year
• What other things do we use oil for?
• The three main oil producing countries
are Saudi Arabia, USA and Russia
Waste Plastic
• There are many different types of plastic
that we use every day
These are split in to 19 different grades - bottles
are made of grades1 and 2 plastics
• Plastics can be very difficult to recycle
Grades 1 and 2 are the easiest to recycle and
are the only types collected for recycling in
Merton
• Plastics can take over 500 years to
breakdown
What can we do to help?
Lightweight plastics use up lots of energy
during recycling.
Reduce - the need for these items
- plastic bags
- plastic packaging
Reuse
Choose things that you can reuse
- wrapper free lunchbox
- reusable shopping bags
Recycle
Choose plastics that can be recycled
easily
- plastic bottles are usually
made from grade 2 plastic
- make something new