• Question: Are all plastics bad for the environment?

    Asked by anon-224267 to Stuart, Scott, Jack on 12 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Jack Saunders

      Jack Saunders answered on 12 Nov 2019:

      No, some plastics can be made from things like plants. These plastics are much better for the environment as they won’t stick around for as long, they will break down and turn into compost. However, we are not able to use them for everything and so some scientists are trying to find good ways of changing these plastics to make them more useful. This means we could change to using these plastics and it would be much better for the environment.

      Also, if we are very careful and recycle, we can stop making so much new plastic and this makes plastics slightly better for the environment.

    • Photo: Stuart Goldie

      Stuart Goldie answered on 12 Nov 2019:

      Jack’s answer is very good; the only thing I would add is that often (but not always) plastics that are used many, many times are very useful and if they are recycled they ok. The problem are “single use” plastics; that means things that are used once to wrap something up or hold something and then thrown away as soon as it’s open. They are very bad and we should try and stop using those as much as we can.

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