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A Guide to Common Household Plastics

29-Jun-2016

© Compound Interest

A Guide to Common Household Plastics

Plastic is everywhere in our day to day lives – but, of course, ‘plastic’ is just a catch-all term for a range of different chemical substances. This graphic takes a look at some of the more common plastics we encounter on a regular basis, and examines their chemical structures. Below, we’ll also talk a little about how these plastics are created.

All plastics we use or encounter are substances called polymers. These polymers are themselves formed from chemical entities called monomers. Monomers can be a range of differing compounds, but specific polymers will generally contain monomers of only one or two types. The polymers are formed by joining together many monomers, like a long chain of paperclips, to form one long molecule.

Topics
  • plastics
  • polymers
  • polyethylene terephthalate
  • polyethylene
  • polypropylene
  • polyamides
  • polystyrene
  • polytetrafluoroethylene
  • polyvinyl chloride
  • polyurethanes
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