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