From residential homes to commercial buildings, hospitals and schools, architects and designers rely on plastics to help maximize durability and improve energy efficiency and performance. Properly installed plastic building products can help reduce energy and maintenance costs and potentially reduce a homeowner’s carbon footprint. In fact, a one-year study found that the use of plastic building materials saved 467.2 trillion Btu of energy over alternative construction materials. That’s enough energy saved over the course of a year to meet the average energy needs of 4.6 million U.S. households!

 Here are just a few of the ways that plastics help save energy at home:   

• From rigid polystyrene foam insulation panels (expanded or extruded) that can help homeowners save hundreds of dollars each year on heating and cooling bills, to plastic wrap that can reduce infiltration of outside air by 10-50 percent, plastic can help drastically reduce the energy required to heat or cool homes.Insulation:

• Applying polymeric based caulks and sealants is a quick, easy fix for drafty windows. If replacement windows are needed, use vinyl window frames, which decrease condensation and help homes maintain an even temperature, cutting down on extra heating and air conditioning usage. This helps reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with energy generation.Windows:

 

• Roofing systems made with plastics, such as vinyl or TPO single-ply membranes for the outer surface in combination with rigid polyiso board or spray polyurethane foam underneath, offer energy savings, durability and moisture control. These kinds of roofing systems typically have a light colored, reflective coating in warm climates, which reduces the amount of heat transported inside the building through thermal bridges (created when materials that are poor insulators come into contact, allowing heat to flow through the path created.) The cooler the building, the less air conditioning is required and therefore, less energy is consumed.Roofing:

 

• Lumber made from recycled plastics and plastic-wood composites can outlast traditional materials and requires less maintenance. Composite lumber is resistant to weathering, requiring less material to be used over time, which saves energy. It is also eco-friendly as much of the lumber is made from recycled materials and/or can be recycled. Composite Lumber:

 

• Using cross-linked polyethylene piping (called PEX), which is lighter and more flexible than other materials, allows for multiple feed lines throughout a house, which allows hot water to arrive faster to a sink or shower which can significantly save water. Piping:

 

Whether you’re doing a complete eco-renovation or looking for smaller ways to save energy at home, plastics help make it possible. For each of the above examples, energy and cost savings vary. Please check with your local retailer on pricing and availability of products.

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www.americanchemistry.com for more information.

Who would have thought that a shell could spark what has been hailed by many scientists as the “next technological revolution.” By mimicking structures found in mollusks, scientists have created a transparent plastic that is as strong as steel.

Plastic nanotechnologies are built one nanoscale layer at a time. The process is similar to the way that mother-of-pearl, oyster and other mollusk shells grow. When the nanosheets are arranged in a brick-and-mortar structure, the final product is thinner than a strand of human hair but millions of times stronger.

These advancements in plastic nanotechnology reverberate widely. During the last decade, scientists have hoped to substitute polymers for the ultra-pure and very expensive silicon material used to make computer chips.

Plastic chips might soon be used in consumer electronics to drive flexible displays and keyboards and even changeable electronic wallpaper.  Imagine that when you turned off your wall-sized television screen, a wallpaper pattern would appear to camouflage it. This is the future of nanotechnology in the living room.

Other possible applications include smart train and bus tickets and radio identification tags used to keep track of parts in factories or goods in stores.

Researchers also hope to develop improved polymer solar cells using nanomaterial additives. Labs across the country and abroad are currently experimenting with thin polymer film that can be rolled out in sheets. The film contains nanoscale pieces of semiconductor material and single-walled carbon nanotubes that maximize light to energy transfers. In layman’s terms, these ultra-thin, flexible sheets of plastic convert more of the sun’s rays into clean, inexpensive energy.

Most importantly, these sheets of film can be cut up and reused even if they have been bent. This is a marked contrast to rigid silicon cells that are easily cracked and expensive to replace.

Engineers at Bristol University in the U.K. have created plastic technologies that could one-day lead to the development of airplanes that can literally fix themselves while they are still in the air.

Interestingly, the British engineers were inspired by human biology; their plastic technology emulates the healing process in living organisms.

The self-healing plastics have micro tubes of epoxy resin embedded inside fiber-reinforced polymers. When a plane stretches and cracks, the resin in these tiny tubes oozes out, hardens, and patches the crack.

Because most of the wear and tear on airplanes is too small to be perceptible to the human eye, the Bristol engineers also dyed the resin with an ultraviolet pigment. To determine if or where the plane has healed itself, mechanical crews simply turn on the black lights, find the patches and perform a more permanent fix.

Don’t be fooled by a convincing faux finish – the “wood” on and in your walls, doors, window frames, decorative molding and outdoor decking and fencing might all be made with plastics-wood composites. Here’s why that’s a very good thing…

More and more architects, designers, builders and property owners are replacing 100 percent wooden building materials with a composite material made from recycled plastic and wood wastes. An important benefit of plastic is its ability to synergistically combine with other materials like wood, metal and glass. The advantages of using plastic-wood composites go far beyond finding a creative way to recycle.

For example, plastic-wood composites are lightweight, easy to install, durable, easy to maintain, resistant to weather damage and corrosion, easy to customize and incredibly strong.

Typical wood-plastic composites are made of wood from recovered sawdust, pulp fibers, peanut hulls, bamboo, or straw, as well as from a variety of recycled plastic resins, which bond and reinforce fibers. Commonly used resins include polyester, polyethylene, vinyl ester, modified acrylic, epoxy, phenolic and polyurethane.

Looking for motivation to recycle?  Remember that today’s plastic bottles, bags and product wraps could be tomorrow’s durable deck.  Plastic bottles typically go curbside.  Plastic bags and wraps can be brought back to many grocery stores that collect these materials for recycling.

View ACC’s tips on recycling bottles and bags

View a list of plastic bags and wraps that can be recycled

View a list of bottles that can be recycled