Sunday, September 25, 2011

Plastic Bottles


           Many companies in the last few years have reduced the amount of plastic that is used to make their water bottles. This is a change to becoming more green but the use of oil to make these plastic bottles is still thought by many to be unacceptable, not to mention that many of the bottles still don’t make it to the recycling process to be reused (about 75% in the U.S.).
           
            In 2008, a man by the name of Danny Clark came up with a new type of water bottle, calling them Enso Bottles. He believes “bottles are a big issue. It’s talked about, and it’s visible”. With that being said, he came up with a real biodegradable, recyclable polyethylene terephthalate plastic bottle (PET for short). The original PET bottles would take hundreds of years to break down while his new type of bottle starts to break down in as little as 250 days.

           PET Chemical Reaction

            This above link is the chemical reaction used to create PET. In addition to this, Clark also has an extra additive in the process to make these bottles but isn’t specified. It was said, however, that the additive doesn’t affect the quality of the bottles in any way.


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2 comments:

  1. This is a really interesting blog. I never heard of biodegradable plastic bottles. I've heard of biodegradable bags for potato chips (making them biodegradable made them a lot louder). Every time I reach for a potato chip in a biodegradable bag, everyone in the room hears it! At least we don't have to worry about loud biodegradable water bottles! Very informative blog. Keep it up.

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  2. There have been so many alternative types of plastic created in the last few years. I have seen many movements to make reusable water bottles more prevalent, too. I read once that it takes three times as much water to make a disposable water bottle than the amount that it can hold. While recycling the disposable bottles is still a step in the right direction, using ones that can be washed and reused or ones that will break down on their own is an even more efficient idea.

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