American Plastic PDF Download

Author: Jeffrey L. Meikle
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813522357
Category : Plastics
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
"(Meikle) traces the course of plastics from 19th-century celluloid and the first wholly synthetic bakelite, in 1907, through the proliferation of compounds (vinyls, acrylics, nylon, etc.) and recent ecological concerns".--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. Winner of the 1996 Dexter Prize from the Society for the History of Technology and a 1996 CHOICE Oustanding Academic Book. 70 illustrations.

Author: Susan Freinkel
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547549148
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
“This eloquent, elegant book thoughtfully plumbs the . . . consequences of our dependence on plastics” (The Boston Globe, A Best Nonfiction Book of 2011). From pacemakers to disposable bags, plastic built the modern world. But a century into our love affair, we’re starting to realize it’s not such a healthy relationship. As journalist Susan Freinkel points out in this eye-opening book, we’re at a crisis point. Plastics draw on dwindling fossil fuels, leach harmful chemicals, litter landscapes, and destroy marine life. We’re drowning in the stuff, and we need to start making some hard choices. Freinkel tells her story through eight familiar plastic objects: a comb, a chair, a Frisbee, an IV bag, a disposable lighter, a grocery bag, a soda bottle, and a credit card. With a blend of lively anecdotes and analysis, she sifts through scientific studies and economic data, reporting from China and across the United States to assess the real impact of plastic on our lives. Her conclusion is severe, but not without hope. Plastic points the way toward a new creative partnership with the material we love, hate, and can’t seem to live without. “When you write about something so ubiquitous as plastic, you must be prepared to write in several modes, and Freinkel rises to this task. . . . She manages to render the most dull chemical reaction into vigorous, breathless sentences.” —SF Gate “Freinkel’s smart, well-written analysis of this love-hate relationship is likely to make plastic lovers take pause, plastic haters reluctantly realize its value, and all of us understand the importance of individual action, political will, and technological innovation in weaning us off our addiction to synthetics.” —Publishers Weekly “A compulsively interesting story. Buy it (with cash).” —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature “What a great read—rigorous, smart, inspiring, and as seductive as plastic itself.” —Karim Rashid, designer

Author: Elise Moser
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
ISBN: 1554988942
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
The extraordinary story of the woman who made plastics recycling possible. Milly Zantow wanted to solve the problem of her town’s full landfill and ended up creating a global recycling standard — the system of numbers you see inside the little triangle on plastics. This is the inspiring story of how she mobilized her community, creating sweeping change to help the environment. On a trip to Japan in 1978, Milly noticed that people were putting little bundles out on the street each morning. They were recycling — something that hadn’t taken hold in North America. When she returned to Sauk City, Wisconsin, she discovered that her town’s landfill was nearing capacity, and that plastic made up a large part of the garbage. No one was recycling plastics. Milly decided to figure out how. She discovered that there are more than seven kinds of plastic, and they can’t be combined for recycling, so she learned how to use various tests to identify them. Then she found a company willing to use recycled plastic, but the plastic would have to be ground up first. Milly and her friend bought a huge industrial grinder and established E-Z Recycling. They worked with local school children and their community, and they helped other communities start their own recycling programs. But Milly knew that the large-scale recycling of plastics would never work unless people could easily identify the seven types. She came up with the idea of placing an identifying number in the little recycling triangle, which has become the international standard. Milly's story is a glimpse into the early days of the recycling movement and shows how, thanks to her determination, hard work and community-building, huge changes took place, spreading rapidly across North America. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.3 Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.7 Interpret information presented visually, orally, or quantitatively (e.g., in charts, graphs, diagrams, time lines, animations, or interactive elements on Web pages) and explain how the information contributes to an understanding of the text in which it appears.

Author: Peter J. Morris
Publisher: Chemical Heritage Foundation
ISBN: 9780941901031
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
Accompanied by an introductory overview of the history of polymer science, this book contains biographical sketches of 12 pioneers, from Marcellin Berthollet and John Wesley Hyatt to Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta. It also includes time charts before each chapter that summarise significant events.

Author: Hans-Georg Elias
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 3527296026
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
This second edition of An Introduction to Plastics is the answer to manifold requests for an updated version by the readership. Since publication of the first edition in 1993, the field of plastics has seen tremendous development. Their manufacture and properties are discussed and correlated to the molecular and supermolecular properties of polymers. The contents have been thoroughly revised, restructured and enlarged. Several topics such as polymer composites and mixtures, morphology, flow properties and processing have been given more space, and chapters on electrical conductivity and non-linear optical properties have been newly added. Reviews of the first edition: "This book presents a precise, yet non-mathematical introduction to plastics, their raw materials, syntheses, properties and applications." (B. Sillion, Revue de l'Institut Francais du Pétrole) "The volume is excellently written, with a simple, straightforward and comprehensive index. It provides an overview of all plastics, including raw materials: manufacture, structure, processing, properties and, of course, applications" (D.W. Taylor and J.F. Kennedy, Polymer International) "This book has all the earmarks of becoming a guide to or even a reference book for polymers in structural applications" (Willi Kreuder, Acta Polymerica)

Author: Library of Congress. Copyright Office
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Copyright
Languages : en
Pages : 548

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Author: Ranjan Ghosh
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501766287
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
The Plastic Turn offers a novel way of looking at plastic as the defining material of our age and at the plasticity of plastic as an innovative means of understanding the arts and literature. Ranjan Ghosh terms this approach the material-aesthetic and, through this concept, traces the emergence and development of plastic polymers along the same historical trajectory as literary modernism. Plastic's growth as a product in the culture industry, its formation through multiple application and chemical syntheses, and its circulation via oceanic movements, Ghosh argues, correspond with, and offers novel insights into, developments in modernist literature and critical theory. Through innovative readings of canonical modernist texts, analyses of art works, and accounts of plastic's devastating environmental impact, The Plastic Turn proposes plastic's unique properties and destructive ubiquity as a "theory machine" to explain literature and life in the Anthropocene. Introducing several new concepts (like plastic literature, plastic literary, etc.) into critical-humanist discourse, Ghosh enmeshes literature and theory, materiality and philosophy, history and ecology, to explore why plastic as a substance and as an idea intrigues, disturbs, and haunts us.

Author: James P. Harrington
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1482294001
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 698

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Book Description
This is the first edition of a unique new plastics industry resource: Who's Who in Plastics & Polymers. It is the only biographical directory of its kind and includes contact, affiliation and background information on more than 3300 individuals who are active leaders in this industry and related organizations. The biographical directory is i

Author: Robert Douglas Friedel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
In 1869, an Albany printer discovered how to mix nitrocellulose with camphor under high pressure to yield a hard, shiny, moldable substance which he and his brother called celluloid. This discovery was the dawn of the Plastics Age, but it represented only the first step in establishing a new technology. Examines the 20 years of laboratory trial and error that produced the first artificial plastic, as well as the equally difficult challenge of selling the product to a public that wasn't sure what to use it for. He shows how the struggle to find uses for the new material and to create markets for it was as significant as solving the problems of making it. Illustrated.

Author: E. S. Stevens
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691214174
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Plastics are everywhere. Bags, bank cards, bottles, and even boats can all be made of this celebrated but much-maligned material. Yet most of us know next to nothing about plastics. We do know that they are practical and cheap--but they also represent a huge environmental problem, for they literally take ages to decompose. In this engaging book, E.S. Stevens tells us everything we have always wondered about plastics and of the efforts, in America, Europe, and Asia, to develop a new breed of environmentally friendly plastics. He points to a possible future where plastics will no longer be made of petroleum, but of plants. The first two chapters assess the increased use of plastics as a relatively new alternative to other materials. The third chapter introduces us to their impact on the environment and strategies for their disposal or recycling. The next two chapters cover basic concepts and terms used in polymer sciences and provide some basic chemistry. With these fundamentals in tow, the author compares how petroleum-based and biological polymers are made, and the various ways in which they decompose. He acquaints readers with the emerging technologies, their commercial viability, and their future. Finally, instructions are given for preparing basic bioplastics using readily available materials. Nonspecialists will find Green Plastics a concise introduction to this exciting interdisciplinary topic--an introduction otherwise not available. For students it provides easy entry to an area of science with wide appeal and current importance; for teachers, excellent background reading for courses in various sciences. The prospect of depleted fossil fuel supplies, and the potential benefits of bioplastics to the environment and to rural areas that could supply the raw materials, make this book a compelling presentation of a subject whose time has come.