Sustainable development and polymer materials

Abstract

In the last twenty years, a rapid growth in the application of polymer materials occurred in practically all fields of human activities, especially for packaging. Never the less, in the world and our country, quite often one can hear the ideas that polymer materials satisfy all the technical and economic requirements, but because they cannot fit into the circular flow of matter in nature, they pollute the environment and therefore do not satisfy the environmental criteria, so they should not be used for example, for packaging and in particular not for food packaging. In the first part of this article the reasons which led to the pollution of our planet earth are pointed out and also what is done in order to preserve the environment and to accept and introduce into the life ideas of sustainable development. In the second part it is shown, on selected examples, in which amount application of polymer materials based on fossil or renewable raw materials contributes to sustainable development. It is also shown that by recycling of polymer waste into new materials and raw materials or its combustion, significant savings in raw materials and energy can be achieved, which further contributes to sustainable development. In addition, polymer materials have significantly contributed to the rapid development of many technologies, such as: technology of transport vehicles production, construction, electronics and electrotechnics, graphic techniques, textiles, sports equipment and in a specific manner contributed to the reduced consumption of raw materials, energy and CO2 emission. Based on the presented data it can be concluded that the polymer materials are environmentally friendly, which is one of the reason for planned annual polymer production growth of 4 to 8% in the next twenty years.