Most people in North America use a wide variety of plastic products in their daily lives. However, these plastic products come in various shapes and sizes, some being malleable and others as hard as steel. However, many don’t realize that many of these plastics consist of the same base material: polyethylene. Here’s what you should know about this plastic and why it’s important.
Most Popular Plastic Material
Polyethylene is extremely popular. Manufacturers use it to create food wraps, automobile parts, and chemical containers. Very few industries don’t use polyethylene in some tools or for some parts of their product. For example, it’s a great substance to use for making hydroponic reservoir tanks and plastic utensils.
Highly Versatile
One of the biggest advantages of polyethylene is how easy it is to form the material into products with different properties. Depending on the production method, polyethylene can be opaque or translucent, thin and fragile or thick and durable, resistant to different chemicals and extreme temperatures.
Easy To Manipulate
Polyethylene is great for production as it’s so easy to use in different recipes and processes because it’s easy to manipulate. Polyethylene melts in high heat, making it easy to conform and change as you need, and works well with CNC machining processes.
Very Resilient
One of the reasons why polyethylene is so important and a defining part of it is its resilience. This plastic is highly durable for its size and gets stronger with certain additives. Very few materials are as strong as polyethylene when they’re both the same size and density nor as resistant to chemicals and extreme cold.
Cheap To Produce
Many materials exist out there with similar properties and may work just as well as polyethylene, but they’re not as cheap. Polyethylene is easy to obtain and inexpensive to manufacture and turn into other products, which makes it ideal for manufacturers and producers. It’s a great product for making whatever you need for your business or industry.
All these factors contribute to the popularity of polyethylene and the variety of products it makes to this day. This plastic is resilient, an electric insulator, and easy to shape into whatever you need; it’s plain to see why polyethylene is so popular worldwide and useful for everyday life.
