page_title: Polyethylene
section_title: Environmental issues
hierarchical_section_title: Polyethylene / Environmental issues
caption_attribution_description: English: A Little Bag (Or a Sample) of Polyethylene (PE)
context_page_description: Polyethylene or polythene is the most common plastic in use today. It is a linear, man-made, addition, homo-polymer, primarily used for packaging. As of 2017, over 100 million tonnes of polyethylene resins are being produced annually, accounting for 34% of the total plastics market.
  Many kinds of polyethylene are known, with most having the chemical formula ₙ. PE is usually a mixture of similar polymers of ethylene, with various values of n. It can be low density or high density: low density polyethylene is extruded using high pressure and high temperature, while high density polyethylene is extruded using low pressure and low temperature. Polyethylene is usually thermoplastic, however it can be modified to become thermosetting instead, for example in cross-linked polyethylene.
context_section_description: Polyethylene is produced from ethylene, and although ethylene can be produced from renewable resources, it is mainly obtained from petroleum or natural gas.
  Moreover, the widespread usage of polyethylene poses difficulties for waste management if it is not recycled. Polyethylene, like other synthetic plastics, is not readily biodegradable, and thus accumulates in landfills. Recycling is made easier if marked with a recycling code. This can read "PE" or "02" ("plastic number 2") for PE-HD and "04" ("plastic number 4") for PE-LD.
  In Japan, getting rid of plastics in an environmentally friendly way was the major problem discussed until the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 became a larger issue. It was listed as a $90 billion market for solutions. Since 2008, Japan has rapidly increased the recycling of plastics, but still has a large amount of plastic wrapping which goes to waste.
  In 2010, a Japanese researcher, Akinori Ito, released the prototype of a machine which creates oil from polyethylene using a small, self-contained vapor distillation process.
caption: A recyclable bag manufactured from polyethylene.
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