People always use plastic things in their daily life but generally they do not realize this until they think about plastics. However nearly all of the things people use in daily life, are made of plastic.

S.Göktuğ GEDİK 16.12.2002

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It can be curled, twisted, bended, molded in a number of ways. The end product can be a soft and airy foam or a hard and strong compound; and also can be as flexible as a chewing-gum or as solid as a rock. People just melt it, shape it according to the shape in their mind, and it retains the shape after it cools. It can be shaped into anything people want. People call this magical material “plastic”. It is everywhere, in bedrooms, cars, even in some people’s bodies! Due to plastics crucial impacts on daily life, in health and safety, and in advanced technology; plastic has changed the world forever since its invention.

People always use plastic things in their daily life but generally they do not realize this until they think about plastics. However nearly all of the things people use in daily life, are made of plastic. For example PET bottles. PET bottles are used for storing every kind of liquid easily because they are good barriers, safe and lightweight. They do not let anything permeate into the bottle; they cannot be broken or shattered. Additionally, they are one tenth the weight of an equivalent glass pack with high strength! On the other hand, PET bottles are squeezable. Attributes of the PET bottles can be changed by the kind of plastic used for them. Another example for plastic uses in daily life is cable insulating. There are cables everywhere around people; power, data, telephone cables in buildings, in cars, in computers etc… All of them are insulated because metal made cables can be easily affected by the weather conditions. If they are rusted, their efficiency drops and they can cause circuits. People use plastic to prevent these kind of results because plastic is a good insulting material. It protects cables from air, water or any other outer effects. All in all, plastic is the best friend of the people in daily life.

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Yet another dimension of the importance of the plastics is healthcare and safety. Hospitals and clinics are the most common places that people go because of sickness. There is a lot of medical equipment in hospitals or clinics and nearly %100 of this equipment are disposable plastic items. Plastic is used because it is cheaper to produce and easy to use. The reason of this disposable equipment is contagious diseases. Using disposable equipment avoids diseases to spread more. Today, all over the world, disposable vaccination equipments are used to prevent diseases to spread. If only one vaccination equipment is used for everyone in a group, sick people would spread the disease to other people automatically. In addition, a different kind of plastic is used by police. It is called “high-tech plastic” and it is used for bullet-resistant vests to keep them protected. These vests are about five times as strong as steel but they do not restrict the movability of the police. That helps police to act as quickly as any person who do not have a vest. Because of these crucial effects in healthcare and safety, plastic is indispensable for people since its invention.

The greatest impact of plastics can easily be seen in advanced technology. Mobile phones, beepers and other personal communication devices depend on strong, long lasting, nonconducting plastic components to protect electronic circuits. Their insulation attributes (insulating the electrons) save these devices from harm. Nevertheless, in automotive sector, engineers started to use plastic components instead of iron, steel and magnesium. They are doing this kind of modification because they can get the same performance from plastic components. They are lighter, cheaper and easy to produce. They also allow designers to shape components more complicated and develop them easily. Taking everything into account, plastic made a formidable improvement in technology and opened up a door to a new world.

For the reasons mentioned above, plastic has altered the whole world eternally as a result of its remarkable effects on people’s lives. From a PET bottle to a bullet-resistant vest, it is used in various areas to make life easier, to advance technologies and to make life safer for people. It is the magical material which shapes different forms and plays different roles in life. On the whole, nobody can deny that plastic has the greatest effect on people’s lives in last 200 years.

American Plastics Council. Plastics In Your Life.

Retrieved November 24-December 13, 2002 from World Wide Web:

Inventors. (1996). The History Of Plastic.

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Nissei ASB Machine Co., LTD. (2001, November 27). PET Bottles.

Retrieved November 25-December 14, 2002 from the World Wide Web: