Thursday, February 26, 2009

Oil!!


Today we were discussing fossil fuels and how they form.  You may recall that I referred to fossil fuels as "trapped sunlight."  Fossil fuels come from the remains of plants and animals that have died off millions of years ago.  All living organisms on this planet (with the possible exception of some bacteria that live at the bottom of the oceans) depend on sunlight energy to grow and live.

BlogWork

We do not only use fossil fuels as an energy source.  We also convert some of it to make plastic.  The invention of artificial plastics had a damaging effect on the environment because most plastics break down very slowly, so they remain in landfills and are dangerous to wildlife.  However, the invention of plastics also affected the environment in many positive ways.  Write a paragraph describing some of the positive qualities to plastic.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Plastic is not good for the environment. As a matter of fact, plastic is horrible for the environment. Though some plastics decompose quicker than others. You of course can reuse plastic. Like, you can reuse plastic bags that you get from the supermarket. You can get little plastic containers from the store and reuse them. You can even reuse plastic to make something else out of plastic. But DO NOT throw plasic into the trash. If you must dispose of it, throw it in the recycling bin. This may be a bit on a beginners lesson of plastic recycling, but I know this for a fact. Plastic is bad for the environment. Heck, I even look up "plastic good for the environment" in Google and basically found nothing. That is what I know for a fact is true about plastic and the environment.

Anonymous said...

Though plastics are a grave danger to the enviornment, they are also a great bennifet towards nature. like mike (posted before me), i also found no information on any website. from my own knowledge, i know that it is better for the enviornment than paper with stuff on it, as in a plastic container over a paper bag you used for lunch, as the plastic could easily be recycled. unlike everlasting metal, that is only plaged by rust, plastic is some-what degradeble and will stay the same consistensy untill it degrades. when you think about it, plastic only chokes animals and "fills" land-fills, whiul other harmfulo chemical-made products used in its place, can kill most living things and will harm the overall enviornment. finally, plastic is easier to use again and is probably one of the most recycled materials ever.

Anonymous said...

Most of the dump waste in the United States consists of plastic such as bottles, cans, wrappers, and sheets. With all of this plastic waste the earth has become even more polluted. But people have come up with solutions to this issue. People are starting to use plastic waste for energy recovery or for recycling of raw material, respectively. PET and EPS were collec¬ted separately quite from the beginning also the burning of plastic waste for energetic purposes substitutes for fossil fuels, what decreases the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Detailed reasons are given, why burning for energetic purposes seems to be the most reasonable use of plastic waste from households.

Anonymous said...

Although plastic may not be the most efficient substance for our planet, it can do good. Lower grade plastic can one be recycled but also will decompose faster. Another advancement in the research of plastic is something Toronto University is doing, they are taking plastic and turning it into solar energy. In Australia they are taking old plastic and turning it into sulfur diesel. We can start taking old plastic and turning it into new and better things that will help our planet. These may not happen over night but with time we can really effect our planet in a more positive way.

Anonymous said...

People are starting to use plastic waste for energy recovery or for recycling of raw material, respectively. pets and eps were collected separately quite from the beginning also the burning of plastic waste for energetic purposes substitutes for fossil fuels, what decreases the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Detailed reasons are given, why burning for energetic purposes seems to be the most reasonable use of plastic waste from households.

Anonymous said...

we need to recycle the plastic bottles we use,
1. we can recycle them. so they wont end up in a ladfill with all of the other trash. a plastic bottle in a landfill takes 700 years to decompose. if we recycle 1 ton of plastic bottles then we save 3.8 barrels of oil.
2. after we are done using the bottle and it is empty, we can refill it with tea or lemonade.
plastic bags,
dont double bag!! use those pretty fabric like bags. and take then into the store with you.
at some stores they dont even have plastic bags.
use plastic bags for when you walk your dog.
use them for your trashcan.

Anonymous said...

hello,dan.
my source was.
earth911.com
I found it very helpful!

Anonymous said...

Some good things about plastic are sometimes its recyclable and it's also reusable. Plastic bags from super markets can be reused for many different things I use mine for doo-doo bags for my dog. Topple wear is a good use for because it can be reused over and over again for a long time. Nalgene bottles are another positive thing about plastic because it also can be reused over and over again.

Anonymous said...

Plastic is bad for the environment but it is used by humans daily. i know the keys on my organ are plastic on top and so are the stops. plastic comes with a cost but if used by reusing it and not dumping it on the street or in the trash it can come to good use such as plastic food containers to keep things fresh or the grocery bags at some grocery stores. but there is plastic in places you probably don't think of such as a writing pen, a camera maybe, or even your favorite macbook laptop. So the things we use everyday with simple objects like the writing pen and we just don't think about it. plastic is very useful but it also has a bad effect if you dont use it in the right ways.

Anonymous said...

Plastic is a good thing, but it is used, by us humans, in a very wasteful and damaging way. I am going to talk about the things that we could use plastic for if humans would stop being so wasteful. I think that plastic for medical stuff should definitely be thrown away, but anything else: no. The reason why is because medical equipment touches sick people, and it's a biohazard to reuse that. Anything else is reusable: bags, bottles, and other things. The bad thing is, people have an attitude that the world is theirs and they can waste what they like. That is the first problem that should be fixed. The second problem is that companies purposefully create things out of plastic that aren't reusable. Like Al Gore said, we are making a mental scale, where gold bars are on one side and the entire planet is on the other. It's obvious that we should reuse plastic. And speaking of global warming, the making of plastic itself creates pollutants that go into the atmosphere. We put those chemicals in for no reason.

Unknown said...

Like most things, plastic is good if used in moderation but bad when used a lot. Plastic may have plenty of bad effects on the environment, but it has also helped us in many different ways. Have you ever been inside a hospital? Look around you and there's plastic all around you! We need plastic in hospitals to make things safer, to transport things, as well as many other uses. We use plastic in a lot of our useless things except for entertainment like laptops and tv's. Without plastic not only would they probably not look as good but they wouldn't be as transportable as they are now if we even still had them around! The world would be very boring without plastic.....

Anonymous said...

Plastic is bad for the environment. Plastic does not help the environment at all, Plastic helps us humans. We make plastic toys like toy guns or a toy train. We also use plastic to store food and stuff in plastic bags and bowls. Remember Plastic Only benefits us NOT the environment. Plastic hurts the environment when we burn it in the process of making it and also it does not become earth it just sits in the soil when people litter.

Diggy Dog D

Anonymous said...

Plastic, of course, is horrible for the environment. However, plastic is also very useful in quite a few ways and can be reused to lessen the effects on the environment. For example, my awesome science teacher washes and reuses plastic bags! How cool of him! Some of the positive qualities of plastic are its reusuability, moldability, microwavable, light but strong, and clear or opaque.

Anonymous said...

Plastic has allowed for hundreds of technological advances in the last 50 years. So many medical wonders would no be plausable if we didn't have plastic materials, we couldn't build them out of wood or sponges, only plastic suffices.
Other things that we consider bad are only bad because of the quantity at which they are produced, instead of reusing the same one over and over, which is cheaper and gives the enviroment a break.

Anonymous said...

Plastic has allowed for hundreds of technological advances in the last 50 years. So many medical wonders would no be plausable if we didn't have plastic materials, we couldn't build them out of wood or sponges, only plastic suffices.
Other things that we consider bad are only bad because of the quantity at which they are produced, instead of reusing the same one over and over, which is cheaper and gives the enviroment a break.

Anonymous said...

plascis in not good for the invironment and earth but it can do good things.like a a hospital it makes matrials and suplies for the patients it can also hold substants for things needed like a blood transfusion to hold the blood but when it sits in a wast thing it doesnt desinagraste for a long time. like if u ahve a waterbottle that is made from a different kind ogf plastic u dont need to keep throwing it pout u can keep usingin over and over again it's just that people dont.

Anonymous said...

plasticis overall realy bad for the environment but some good things it's done is stop people using as much disposeble plates cups, enable people to nothave wooden floors so you don't cut down as much trees. also when you use a bottle don't through it away because plastic almost never bio degrades and you can save oil by recycling plastic