Much less in the former, where there are millions of tons of waste of this material, and of course in our country, where a still incipient recycling culture has turn rivers and beaches into landfills. Hendrik Baekeland, a Belgian-American chemist, is crit with the invention in 1910 of the first synthetic plastic bas on a formula with phenol and formaldehyde that was soon appreciat for its malleability and durability properties: Bakelite. In addition to these qualities, what made plastic a fundamental material during the last century was its low cost, low density, the ability to act as an electrical and acoustic insulator and, ultimately, its resistance to corrosion.
Colonial Legacy of More
The paradox is that many of these properties have end up making it a great threat. There are an estimat 8.3 billion tons of plastic waste around the Earth, 10% of which is found b2b email list in the oceans as marine litter. All this accumulat since the 1950s, when the use of plastic became intensive. Scientists from Stanford and Beijing universities estimate that 0.48 to 1.27 million tons are dump into the sea each year. Currently around the world only 10% of the plastic produc is recycl, so there is little sign that the problem can be solv in the short and mium term.
Than 180 Years Ago
As has become known, a gigantic accumulation of plastic is locat in the northern Pacific between Hawaii and California. It is call the garbage island of the Pacific and has a surface area greater than 1.5 million square Phone Number IT kilometers, about three times the size of Spain. Most of the waste is PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles and containers and other micro and nanoplastics floating in suspension. However, it is not the only one: although smaller in size, there are similar islands in all the oceans. These large accumulations are produc by oceanic gyres which, in turn, are caus by the Earth’s rotation movement.
