Synthetic polymers, or plastics , are increasingly being used in a wide variety of applications from transport and buildings to toys and human replacement parts. Such a wide range of applications indicates materials with a wide variety of properties and the need, on the part of designers, to choose the appropriate synthetic polymer material for a particular application. It was largely the failure to do this in the past that gave plastics a bad reputation and contributed to a cheap and nasty image. Today, synthetic polymer technology even allows the design of the materials themselves with whatever properties are required, and while this is not the norm it is indicated by the way in which the surface coating industry, for example, is developing. The latter is an Australian development from the University of Wollongong.
Synthetic polymers are generally a high energy material, a by-product of petroleum refining.
Thus, at present, the raw material source of carbon compounds for making most synthetic polymers is non-renewable mineral oil. However, renewable sources will probably eventually be used and so polymer technology will have come full circle as the first synthetic polymers were made from naturally occurring sources. Recycling of synthetic polymer materials is a problem which is being addressed in several ways. Elastomers are also usually thermoplastics. In the building industry, synthetic polymers have not often been used in structural applications.