What is Plastic?

Plastics, materials made up of large, organic (carbon-containing) molecules that can be formed into a variety of products. The molecules that compose plastics are long carbon chains that give plastics many of their useful properties. In general, materials that are made up of long, chainlike molecules are called polymers. The word plastic is derived from the words plasticus and plastikos . Plastics can be made hard as stone, strong as steel, transparent as glass, light as wood, and elastic as rubber. Plastics are also lightweight, waterproof, chemical resistant, and produced in almost any color. More than 50 families of plastics have been produced, and new types are currently under development.

Advantages :
- Simple to be used.
- Easy to carry foods or things
- Keep foods clean
- Unbreakable
- Cheap
- Practical

Disadvantages :
a. Can contaminate foods with dangerous chemical compounds
b. Cannot be decomposed in the soil, so it make land pollution
c. Hard to be destroyed
d. Make pollution in the air if it's burnt
e. It causes flood if it's thrown to the river.

The Impacts to Our Health

Air Pollution
Plastics, even we realize it or no, it can cause global warming.
Because it's unable to be decomposed, so, the only way to destroy it is burn it.
The burning process will produce many CO2.

Water Pollution
People often throw plastic waste not in the rubbish bin. Most of people in developing country prefer to just throw it to the land or wherever they want. And the never think that it can cause many trouble to our live. One of it is flood.
These days, thanks to the unpredictable weather, heavy rain often happens everywhere. And, my city is one of the cities that often got flood.

Land Pollution
Plastic known to be a material that easy to bend, and cannot absorb water, also harder to recycle than paper or cloth. Plastic can be land pollution if thrown anywhere. You know, that bacteria in the soil need 500-1000 years to decompose plastic naturally. Which means, while the plastic still remain under the ground, it condition stays, and remain unchanged for years. Plastic can block the water from rain, also minerals and nutrition from rotten leaves on upper soil level to the lower soil level. The soil becomes infertile and lesser plants and trees can grow there, since plants and trees easy to absorb water and minerals from lower soil level. Plastic on soil can also make landslide. Don’t believe it? Well, we all know that plastic on soil can block the water, and the water which not absorbed by soil carry the upper soil level. Little by little, the water carries away the soil, but those little waves of soil create a big landslide. So if people said that cause of landslide is less plant grows, maybe it’s all because one silly thing but causing a big impact, plastic. Of course, you know what the disadvantage of landslide, right? People, who live in the hills, can get the impact. Farmers, their paddy field can be buried from landslide, and can you imagine, their only job for years, ruined by minutes of landslide. That’s why; we can’t throw garbage anywhere, especially plastic. Next time, if you, or your friends, see anyone who throws plastic garbage anywhere, don’t forget to warn them, okay? Think about our earth, lesser growing trees, supporting global warming. You don’t want that to happen, right?