Candy canes.
Design:
A candy cane is made from sugar, various syrups such as sucrose, fructose, and
dextrose. It also has various coloration dyes in it, which give them their color. For flavor,
there is peppermint added. The shape of the candy cane looks like a disabled person’s
walking stick, except it is slightly sticky, quite a bit smaller, edible, and it has stripes,
traditionally red and white.
Materials Processing:
The making of plastic involves starting with the raw material, petroleum, and
adding a second chemical to it (and/or heat) to get the molecules to form chemical
bonds to each other. This process creates polymers, which are strings of atoms bonded
together by a chemical reaction. For the cardboard, you cut down the trees and
transport them to the manufacturing plant. For the candy canes, you harvest the mint
leaves and the sugar canes and ship them to the factory.
Packaging:
The packaging is made from plastic (petroleum), and cardboard or cardstock (trees,
or lumber). The design of the packaging is to shrink-wrap each individual candy cane,
and then place them in individual slots in a cardboard or cardstock box. Then, the whole
box is shrink-wrapped in plastic (petroleum). Then, lots of boxes of candy canes are
placed in cardboard shipping boxes, and, from the factory where they are made, are
shipped to stores to be bought by consumers like us (YUM!) Candy canes, on average (if
not eaten), have a shelf life of 2-5 years. Then, they start to get stale.
Use:
Candy canes are usually used in the following ways: They are usually eaten around
Christmas-time, though some people (like us) eat them year-round. They are also
sometimes used as models for Christmas tree ornaments. Some people even use the
real thing on their Christmas trees. They are also great stocking-stuffers! Candy canes
have a pretty long shelf life. You can wait awhile before you get around to eating them,
and they’ll still be good. Even when they grow stale, they are still edible.
Disposal:
When you dispose of candy canes, you are throwing away the plastic that was used as
shrink-wrap, the cardboard or cardstock box they came in, and you do NOT throw away
the candy cane unless it was too stale to eat. This means that, if you did throw away the
actual candy cane, and the plastic it came in with the cardboard, it will be transported to
the landfill via a truck, which causes environmental impacts via air pollution from the
gasoline. Once it is in the landfill, it takes up space, and will either decompose or be
eaten by animals that live in the landfill and feed off of trash (in which case, the candy
cane will end up out the back end as either methane gas (air pollution) or solid and
liquid waste (ground pollution)).The plastic will not decompose for hundreds of years,
and the cardboard won’t take long to be destructed.
Materials Acquisition:
To get the petroleum to make the plastic, you make an oil well, and drill down through
the earth’s surface to a pocket of petroleum. Then, bring it up via technology, and
transport it via truck to an oil refinery once it is out of the ground. To get the timber to
make the cardboard, you cut down the trees and import them to the factory where they
are made into cardboard or cardstock. To make the candy cane, you first have to harvest
the cane sugar from the fields where they grow. Then, you import them to a factory,
where they make it into pure sugar.
Manufacturing:
The sugar to make the candy canes is then imported to another factory, where they mix
it with other ingredients and flavors. They make candy canes using the same process as
other hard candy. To make the plastic, the water, alcohol, and oil mixture are poured
into a mold, and become clear plastic. To make different thicknesses, consistencies, and
types of plastic, there are different techniques, and you sometimes have to boil the
mixture at different temperatures. To make the cardboard, you have to take the trees
that you cut down, and transport them to a pulp and paper factory. There, they grind up
the wood into a miniscule shards, and mix it with water to make a thick woody soup.
Then, they press the pulp into different molds and using different techniques in order to
make paper, cardstock, or cardboard.
Distribution:
Plastic is distributed to stores, companies, businesses, and other factories via trucks,
planes, boats, etc. The cardboard and cardstock is distributed in the same manner to the
same places. The candy canes are shrink-wrapped in plastic, inserted into cardstock
boxes, the box is shrink-wrapped in plastic, and then many boxes of candy canes are
placed into a cardboard box, which is placed on a truck, plane, or boat, and shipped to
stores, companies, businesses, and factories everywhere, where they are later,
eventually, sold to consumers.
Reuse/Recycling:
To reuse the cardboard and cardstock boxes, you can use them for art projects at school
and craft projects at home. To recycle the boxes, you have to cut them up into squares
and rectangles of select measurements, and place them into your paper recycling bin.
To reuse plastic, you can use it as a clear, crinkly ribbon for an art project, the perfect
finishing touch. To recycle plastic, place it into your plastic recycling bin (although not
every type of plastic can go in there. Do some research and find out which is which.)
Candy canes can be reused as Christmas ornaments, or get glued up in an art project.
Candy canes cannot really be recycled.