64 Focus on Polymers
Focus on Polymers
Synthetic polymers were developed in the early 20th century, and since that time have become ubiquitous in our world. All of the clothing, the helmet and the goggles on the people riding these snowmobiles and, indeed, the material that makes up the housing of the snowmobiles, are synthetic polymers.
“Alaska National Guard Iron Dog snowmobile race, Camp Denali, Alaska” by The U.S. Army is licensed under CC BY 2.0
The computers we work on, our cell phones and much of the furniture around us all have a large number of different polymers involved in them. The success of these materials, however, is a double-edged sword – their variety continue to provide us with amazing and useful materials, but the fact that they are cheap and vast is also causing a unique environmental catastrophe. In this section, the basic reactions involved in producing the most common polymers will be examined along with a survey of associated environmental issues and current developments being made to address those issues.
Refer to the information discussed in the previous Focus section as well as Part XIII of this text and elaborate on the following focus boxes, solving any problems that appear.
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.7713
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