How a bottle is recycled

Plastic fantastic

You're looking at one of the most widely used materials on the planet, although you may not recognize it.
This almost alien-like landscape is a 1750x magnified view of a polyurethane, a polymer used in everything from mattresses and trainers to airport seats. Like any polymer, polyurethanes are made up of repetitive individual units. If you change these building blocks you can vary the properties of the final product: from liquid, through flexible foam, to solid plastic.
Pictured here is an open cell foam that is only 3 per cent polymer.
Invented by German chemist Dr Otto Bayer back in the 1930s, polyurethanes were first widely used during World War II, commonly as a replacement for rubber, or as coatings on aircraft. 

How Plastic Is Made

This animation is a journey that exposes the process of creating plastic, from oil reserves to landfills, we follow the process of creating a typical plastic item.

What happens to the plastic you throw away?

We’ve all been told that we should recycle plastic bottles and containers.

But what actually happens to the plastic if we just throw it away? Let´s learn the life cycles of three different plastic bottles, shedding light on the dangers these disposables present to our world.

Plastics

We are now literally swimming in a sea of plastics!
But have you ever wondered what those funny little numbers on the bottom of plastic objects stand for?

(Click on the image to enlarge it)