Entry #5- A New Plastic That Can Heal Itself?

I wanted to look for a more recent article to talk about and I came across one just as recent as April 21^st that really interested me in the way that technology is really helping us to come along farther. The article was titled; “Plastic, Heal Thyself: Scientists invent Smart Polymers”. At first I didn’t really understand what exactly the article was talking about, but it interested me enough to continue reading. Scientists have just unveiled a new plastic that can heal itself when it is exposed to natural light. You may think it can’t really be possible, but once you continue reading it really begins to make sense. Plastics are something we see and touch every day, and it almost seems like they exist within everything. Landfills all across the U.S. are filled with thrown out plastics because of leaks, cracks, or simply because they aren’t reusable. Sometimes these plastics can become safety hazards to us and they continue to create pollution within landfills which we know is something that is ruining our earth. By creating an alternative to regular plastic we can begin to reduce pollution and at the same time, without buying so much we can also begin to reduce consumerism which we learned about in class. If these plastics can last longer than normal, we as consumers won’t feel the need to buy, buy, buy, and hopefully be better for us in the long run. The different types of Polymers in this plastic makes it able to heal itself when it’s exposed to sunlight, therefore increase the life sustainability of the product and making it more useful. A way that this plastic will also be imperative is to things such as construction, transportation, and to packaging of products. In the end hopefully it will be less costly and will help products last longer then they usually would. Overall I think this plastic will be a great new addition to our economy, even though it may take quite a while to really come into country wide use. It can help us to reduce consumerism, and pollution, which are two major things we learned about during colloquium.

If all these plastics could repair themselves and be used again don't you think we could create a lot less pollution, and be able to reduce consumerism to save our economy at the same time?