A child’s perspective on all that is plastic

Times are a little strange at the moment and there seems to be a lot of doom and gloom in the media. So, to lighten the mood a little, I decided to do a quick Q&A session regarding plastic with my 10 year old son, who admittedly was grateful for the break in his gruelling home school schedule! Taken from his words.

Question 1. “When you think of the word plastic what do you think of”?

Adam- “Um…recycling…..”

Erin- “What about recycling? What do you think of?”

Adam- “Like, milk bottles and stuff and bin men”.

Erin-” Bin men? Why bin men?”

Adam- “Well they have to take the plastic away for recycling and they use plastic bins. “

Erin- “Anything else you can think of”?

Adam- “The sea and the turtles going through all the rubbish”.

Erin-“Oh dear, OK. Does that make you sad”?

Adam- “Of course, humans are mean and don’t care about other creatures. We should respect the world more”.

Erin- “We should”.  

Question 2. “What can you think of that is made of plastic”?

Adam- “There is so many things! Milk bottles, water bottles, um…. These….” (points to his computer mouse)

Erin- “OK….”

Adam- “remote controls too. I haven’t got time to list it all. I have schoolwork to do”!!

Question 3. “Can you think of any good things about plastic”?

Adam- “That you can use it again. Um…” *big pause*

Erin- “Can you think of an example of where you have used a plastic again”?

Adam- “Like, say you bought a bottle of water and you finished it, you can fill it up again and reuse it and people can take it into work”.

Erin- “Good idea. Do you think we do enough to recycle”?

Adam- “No”.

Erin- “No? What do you think we can do better”?

Adam- “We could make sure that when we have plastic, we put it in recycling and not the bin. People are lazy”.

Question 4. “So, what do you think about igus® being a plastic company? Is that a good thing or a bad thing”?

Adam- “Good thing”

Erin- “Why do you think it is it a good thing”?

Adam- “Because it is helping people”.

Erin- “How is it helping people”?

Adam-“Because, like, for example, I don’t know, this mouse, I know you don’t make these, but it is helping people because they are not chucking it away and they have to use plastic anyway. So, what igus® does make, is things that you can use over and over which is better.”

Erin- “That’s good. So, do you think there is anything that igus® does, that is not good as far as plastic is concerned”?

Adam -“Um……, well what do you do with your leftover material”?

Erin- “We recycle it. We make it into other materials”.

Adam- “Yes, so that’s good, so nothing bad”.

Even though the word “plastic” appears to have negative connotations, especially in the eyes of a child, it would seem that there is a separation between how we feel about single use materials and reusable materials. As a company, igus® is very green when it comes to plastics. We recycle, re granulate and our polymer materials are built “for longer life”

There is also a lot to be said for educating the younger generation. Even at 10 years old, my son was able to distinguish between the good and the bad plastics and also the fact there is still a requirement in some situations to use these materials. At the same time, he is aware that there is a difference between single use and reusable materials. It is all to do with educating our kids.

For more blogs relating to recycling, visit here.