Dow Chemical Company
The Dow Chemical Company referred to as Dow, was an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, United States, the predecessor of the merged company DowDuPont. In 2017, prior to the merger, it was the second-largest chemical manufacturer in the world by revenue and the third-largest chemical company in the world by market capitalization, it ranked second in the world by chemical production in 2014. Dow manufactures plastics and agricultural products. With a presence in about 160 countries, it employs about 54,000 people worldwide; the company has seven different major operating segments, with a wide variety of products made by each one. Dow's 2012 sales totaled $57 billion. Dow has been called the "chemical companies' chemical company" in that most of its sales are to other industries rather than end-users. Dow sells directly to end-users in the human and animal health and consumer products markets. Dow is a member of the American Chemistry Council; the company tagline is "Solutionism".
On September 1, 2017, it merged with DuPont to create DowDuPont. In March 2018, it was announced that Jeff Fettig would become executive chairman of DowDuPont on July 1, 2018, Jim Fitterling would become CEO of Dow Chemical on April 1, 2018. On April 1, 2019, Dow completed separation from DowDuPont. Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene, polyethylene and synthetic rubber, it is a major producer of ethylene oxide, various acrylates and cellulose resins. It produces agricultural chemicals including the pesticide Lorsban and consumer products including Styrofoam; some Dow consumer products including Saran wrap, Ziploc bags and Scrubbing Bubbles were sold to S. C. Johnson & Son in 1997. Performance plastics make up 25 percent of Dow's sales, with many products designed for the automotive and construction industries; the plastics include polyolefins such as polyethylene and polypropylene, as well as polystyrene used to produce Styrofoam insulating material. Dow manufactures epoxy resin intermediates including bisphenol epichlorohydrin.
Saran resins and films are based on polyvinylidene chloride The Performance Chemicals segment produces chemicals and materials for water purification, paper coatings and advanced electronics. Major product lines include nitroparaffins, such as nitromethane, used in the pharmaceutical industry and manufactured by Angus Chemical Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Co. Important polymers include Dowex ion exchange resins and polystyrene latex, as well as Carbowax polyethylene glycols. Specialty chemicals are used as starting materials for production of agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals. Dow Water and Process Solutions is a business unit which manufactures Filmtec reverse osmosis membranes which are used to purify water for human use in the Middle East; the technology was used during 2008 Summer Olympics. Agricultural Sciences, or, provides 7 percent of sales and is responsible for a range of insecticides and fungicides. Seeds from genetically modified plants are an important area of growth for the company.
Dow AgroSciences sells seeds commercially under the following brands: Mycogen, PhytoGen and Hyland Seeds in Canada. Basic plastics end up in everything from diaper liners to beverage bottles and oil tanks. Products are based on the three major polyolefins – polystyrene and polypropylene. Basic chemicals are used internally by Dow as raw materials and are sold worldwide. Markets include dry cleaning and coatings, snow and ice control and the food industry. Major products include ethylene glycol, caustic soda and vinyl chloride monomer. Ethylene oxide and propylene oxide and the derived alcohols ethylene glycol and propylene glycol are major feedstocks for the manufacture of plastics such as polyurethane and PET; the Hydrocarbons and Energy operating segment oversees energy management at Dow. Fuels and oil-based raw materials are procured. Major feedstocks for Dow are provided by this group, including ethylene, propylene, 1,3-butadiene and styrene. Dow was founded in 1897 by chemist Herbert Henry Dow, who invented a new method of extracting the bromine, trapped underground in brine at Midland, Michigan.
Dow sold only bleach and potassium bromide, achieving a bleach output of 72 tons a day in 1902. Early in the company's history, a group of British manufacturers tried to drive Dow out of the bleach business by cutting prices. Dow survived by cutting its prices and, although losing about $90,000 in income, began to diversify its product line. In 1905, German bromide producers began dumping bromides at low cost in the U. S. in an effort to prevent Dow from expanding its sales of bromides in Europe. Instead of competing directly for market share with the German producers, Dow bought the cheap German-made bromides and shipped them back to Europe; this undercut his German competitors. In its early history, Dow set a tradition of diversifying its product line. Within twenty years, Dow had become a major producer of agricultural chemicals, elemental chlorine and other dyestuffs, magnesium metal. During World War I, Dow Chemical supplied many war materials the United States had imported from Germany. Dow produced magnesium for incendiary flares, monochlorobenzene and
R-value (insulation)
In building and construction, the R-value is a measure of how well a two-dimensional barrier, such as a layer of insulation, a window or a complete wall or ceiling, resists conductive flow of heat. R-values measure the thermal resistance per unit of a barrier's exposed area; the greater the R-value, the greater the resistance, so the better the thermal insulating properties of the barrier. R-values are used in describing effectiveness of insulating material and in analysis of heat flow across assemblies under steady-state conditions. Heat flow through a barrier is driven by temperature difference between two sides of the barrier, the R-value quantifies how the object resists this drive: The temperature difference divided by the R-value and multiplied by the surface area of the barrier gives the total rate of heat flow through the barrier, as measured in watts or in BTUs per hour; as long as the materials involved are dense solids in direct mutual contact, R-values are additive. Note that the R-value is the building industry term for what is in other contexts called "thermal resistance per unit area."
It is sometimes denoted RSI-value. An R-value can be given for an assembly of materials. In the case of materials, it is expressed in terms of R-value per unit length; the latter can be misleading in the case of low-density building thermal insulations, for which R-values are not additive: their R-value per inch is not constant as the material gets thicker, but rather decreases. The units of an R-value are not explicitly stated, so it is important to decide from context which units are being used: an R-value expressed in I-P units is about 5.68 times larger than when expressed in SI units, so that, for example, a window, R-2 in I-P units has an RSI of 0.35. For R-values there is no difference between imperial units; as far as how R-values are reported, all of the following mean the same thing: "this is an R-2 window". The more a material is intrinsically able to conduct heat, as given by its thermal conductivity, the lower its R-value. On the other hand, the thicker the material, the higher its R-value.
Sometimes heat transfer processes other than conduction contribute to heat transfer within the material. In such cases, it is useful to introduce an "apparent thermal conductivity", which captures the effects of all three kinds of processes, to define the R-value in general as R = thickness of the specimen apparent thermal conductivity; this comes at a price, however: R-values that include non-conductive processes may no longer be additive and may have significant temperature dependence. In particular, for a loose or porous material, the R-value per inch depends on the thickness always so that it decreases with increasing thickness. For similar reasons, the R-value per inch depends on the temperature of the material increasing with decreasing temperature. In construction it is common to treat R-values as independent of temperature. Note that an R-value may not account for radiative or convective processes at the material's surface, which may be an important factor for some applications; the R-value is the reciprocal of the thermal transmittance of a assembly.
The U. S. construction industry prefers to use R-values, because they are additive and because bigger values mean better insulation, neither of, true for U-factors. The U-factor or U-value is the overall heat transfer coefficient that describes how well a building element conducts heat or the rate of transfer of heat through one square metre of a structure divided by the difference in temperature across the structure; the elements are assemblies of many layers of components such as those that make up walls/floors/roofs etc. It measures the rate of heat transfer through a building element over a given area under standardised conditions; the usual standard is at 50 % humidity with no wind. It is expressed in watts per meter squared kelvin; this means. A low U-value indicates high levels of insulation, they are useful as it is a way of predicting the composite behavior of an entire building element rather than relying on the properties of individual materials. In most countries the properties of specific materials are indicated by the thermal conductivity, sometimes called a k-value or lambda-value.
The thermal conductivity is the ability of a material to conduct heat. Expanded polystyrene has a k-value of around 0.033 W/m
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a recognizable sign, design, or expression which identifies products or services of a particular source from those of others, although trademarks used to identify services are called service marks. The trademark owner can be business organization, or any legal entity. A trademark may be located on a label, a voucher, or on the product itself. For the sake of corporate identity, trademarks are displayed on company buildings; the first legislative act concerning trademarks was passed in 1266 under the reign of Henry III, requiring all bakers to use a distinctive mark for the bread they sold. The first modern trademark laws emerged in the late 19th century. In France the first comprehensive trademark system in the world was passed into law in 1857; the Trade Marks Act 1938 of the United Kingdom changed the system, permitting registration based on "intent-to-use”, creating an examination based process, creating an application publication system. The 1938 Act, which served as a model for similar legislation elsewhere, contained other novel concepts such as "associated trademarks", a consent to use system, a defensive mark system, non claiming right system.
The symbols ™ and ® can be used to indicate trademarks. A trademark identifies the brand owner of a particular service. Trademarks can be used by others under licensing agreements; the unauthorized usage of trademarks by producing and trading counterfeit consumer goods is known as brand piracy. The owner of a trademark may pursue legal action against trademark infringement. Most countries require formal registration of a trademark as a precondition for pursuing this type of action; the United States and other countries recognize common law trademark rights, which means action can be taken to protect an unregistered trademark if it is in use. Still, common law trademarks offer the holder, in general, less legal protection than registered trademarks. A trademark may be designated by the following symbols: ™ ℠ ® A trademark is a name, phrase, symbol, image, or a combination of these elements. There is a range of non-conventional trademarks comprising marks which do not fall into these standard categories, such as those based on colour, smell, or sound.
Trademarks which are considered offensive are rejected according to a nation's trademark law. The term trademark is used informally to refer to any distinguishing attribute by which an individual is identified, such as the well-known characteristics of celebrities; when a trademark is used in relation to services rather than products, it may sometimes be called a service mark in the United States. The essential function of a trademark is to identify the commercial source or origin of products or services, so a trademark, properly called, indicates source or serves as a badge of origin. In other words, trademarks serve to identify a particular business as the source of goods or services; the use of a trademark in this way is known as trademark use. Certain exclusive rights attach to a registered mark. Trademark rights arise out of the use of, or to maintain exclusive rights over, that sign in relation to certain products or services, assuming there are no other trademark objections. Different goods and services have been classified by the International Classification of Goods and Services into 45 Trademark Classes.
The idea behind this system is to specify and limit the extension of the intellectual property right by determining which goods or services are covered by the mark, to unify classification systems around the world. In trademark treatises it is reported that blacksmiths who made swords in the Roman Empire are thought of as being the first users of trademarks. Other notable trademarks that have been used for a long time include Löwenbräu, which claims use of its lion mark since 1383; the first trademark legislation was passed by the Parliament of England under the reign of King Henry III in 1266, which required all bakers to use a distinctive mark for the bread they sold. The first modern trademark laws emerged in the late 19th century. In France the first comprehensive trademark system in the world was passed into law in 1857 with the "Manufacture and Goods Mark Act". In Britain, the Merchandise Marks Act 1862 made it a criminal offence to imitate another's trade mark'with intent to defraud or to enable another to defraud'.
In 1875, the Trade Marks Registration Act was passed which allowed formal registration of trade marks at the UK Patent Office for the first time. Registration was considered to comprise prima facie evidence of ownership of a trade mark and registration of marks began on 1 January 1876; the 1875 Act defined a registrable trade mark as'a device, or mark, or name of an individual or firm printed in some particular and distinctive manner. In the United States, Congress first atte
Polystyrene
Polystyrene is a synthetic aromatic hydrocarbon polymer made from the monomer styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear and rather brittle, it is an inexpensive resin per unit weight. It is a rather poor barrier to oxygen and water vapour and has a low melting point. Polystyrene is one of the most used plastics, the scale of its production being several million tonnes per year. Polystyrene can be transparent, but can be coloured with colourants. Uses include protective packaging, lids, trays, disposable cutlery and in the making of models; as a thermoplastic polymer, polystyrene is in a solid state at room temperature but flows if heated above about 100 °C, its glass transition temperature. It becomes rigid; this temperature behaviour is exploited for extrusion and for molding and vacuum forming, since it can be cast into molds with fine detail. Polystyrene is slow to biodegrade, it is accumulating as a form of litter in the outdoor environment along shores and waterways in its foam form, in the Pacific Ocean.
Polystyrene was discovered in 1839 by an apothecary from Berlin. From storax, the resin of the American sweetgum tree Liquidambar styraciflua, he distilled an oily substance, a monomer that he named styrol. Several days Simon found that the styrol had thickened into a jelly he dubbed styrol oxide because he presumed an oxidation. By 1845 Jamaican-born chemist John Buddle Blyth and German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann showed that the same transformation of styrol took place in the absence of oxygen, they called the product "metastyrol". In 1866 Marcelin Berthelot identified the formation of metastyrol/Styroloxyd from styrol as a polymerisation process. About 80 years it was realized that heating of styrol starts a chain reaction that produces macromolecules, following the thesis of German organic chemist Hermann Staudinger; this led to the substance receiving its present name, polystyrene. The company I. G. Farben began manufacturing polystyrene in Ludwigshafen, about 1931, hoping it would be a suitable replacement for die-cast zinc in many applications.
Success was achieved when they developed a reactor vessel that extruded polystyrene through a heated tube and cutter, producing polystyrene in pellet form. In 1941, Dow Chemical invented a Styrofoam process. Before 1949, chemical engineer Fritz Stastny developed pre-expanded PS beads by incorporating aliphatic hydrocarbons, such as pentane; these beads are the raw material for extruding sheets. BASF and Stastny applied for a patent, issued in 1949; the moulding process was demonstrated at the Kunststoff Messe 1952 in Düsseldorf. Products were named Styropor; the crystal structure of isotactic polystyrene was reported by Giulio Natta. In 1954, the Koppers Company in Pittsburgh, developed expanded polystyrene foam under the trade name Dylite. In 1960, Dart Container, the largest manufacturer of foam cups, shipped their first order. In chemical terms, polystyrene is a long chain hydrocarbon wherein alternating carbon centers are attached to phenyl groups. Polystyrene's chemical formula is n; the material's properties are determined by short-range van der Waals attractions between polymers chains.
Since the molecules consist of thousands of atoms, the cumulative attractive force between the molecules is large. When heated, the chains are able to take on a higher degree of conformation and slide past each other; this intermolecular weakness confers elasticity. The ability of the system to be deformed above its glass transition temperature allows polystyrene to be softened and molded upon heating. Extruded polystyrene is about as strong as an unalloyed aluminium but much more flexible and much less dense. Polystyrene results. In the polymerisation, the carbon–carbon π bond of the vinyl group is broken and a new carbon–carbon σ bond is formed, attaching to the carbon of another styrene monomer to the chain; the newly formed σ bond is stronger than the π bond, broken, thus it is difficult to depolymerize polystyrene. About a few thousand monomers comprise a chain of polystyrene, giving a molecular weight of 100,000–400,000; each carbon of the backbone has tetrahedral geometry, those carbons that have a phenyl group attached are stereogenic.
If the backbone were to be laid as a flat elongated zig-zag chain, each phenyl group would be tilted forward or backward compared to the plane of the chain. The relative stereochemical relationship of consecutive phenyl groups determines the tacticity, which has an effect on various physical properties of the material; the diastereomer where all of the phenyl groups are on the same side is called isotactic polystyrene, not produced commercially. The only commercially important form of polystyrene is atactic, in which the phenyl groups are randomly distributed on both sides of the polymer chain; this random positioning prevents the chains from aligning with sufficient regularity to achieve any crystallinity. The plastic has a glass transition temperature Tg of ~90 °C. Polymerisation is initiate
Canada
Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Canada's southern border with the United States is the world's longest bi-national land border, its capital is Ottawa, its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto and Vancouver. As a whole, Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its land area being dominated by forest and tundra, its population is urbanized, with over 80 percent of its inhabitants concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, many near the southern border. Canada's climate varies across its vast area, ranging from arctic weather in the north, to hot summers in the southern regions, with four distinct seasons. Various indigenous peoples have inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Beginning in the 16th century and French expeditions explored, settled, along the Atlantic coast.
As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces; this began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom. This widening autonomy was highlighted by the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and culminated in the Canada Act of 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy in the Westminster tradition, with Elizabeth II as its queen and a prime minister who serves as the chair of the federal cabinet and head of government; the country is a realm within the Commonwealth of Nations, a member of the Francophonie and bilingual at the federal level. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, education.
It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Canada's long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. A developed country, Canada has the sixteenth-highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the twelfth-highest ranking in the Human Development Index, its advanced economy is the tenth-largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. Canada is part of several major international and intergovernmental institutions or groupings including the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the G7, the Group of Ten, the G20, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the etymological origins of Canada, the name is now accepted as coming from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village" or "settlement".
In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona. Cartier used the word Canada to refer not only to that particular village but to the entire area subject to Donnacona. From the 16th to the early 18th century "Canada" referred to the part of New France that lay along the Saint Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named the Canadas. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the legal name for the new country at the London Conference, the word Dominion was conferred as the country's title. By the 1950s, the term Dominion of Canada was no longer used by the United Kingdom, which considered Canada a "Realm of the Commonwealth"; the government of Louis St. Laurent ended the practice of using'Dominion' in the Statutes of Canada in 1951. In 1982, the passage of the Canada Act, bringing the Constitution of Canada under Canadian control, referred only to Canada, that year the name of the national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day.
The term Dominion was used to distinguish the federal government from the provinces, though after the Second World War the term federal had replaced dominion. Indigenous peoples in present-day Canada include the First Nations, Métis, the last being a mixed-blood people who originated in the mid-17th century when First Nations and Inuit people married European settlers; the term "Aboriginal" as a collective noun is a specific term of art used in some legal documents, including the Constitution Act 1982. The first inhabitants of North America are hypothesized to have migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 14,000 years ago; the Paleo-Indian archeological sites at Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are two of the oldest sites of human habitation in Canada. The characteristics of Canadian indigenous societies included permanent settlements, complex societal hierarchies, trading networks; some of these cultures had collapsed by the time European explorers arrived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries and have only been discovered through archeological investigations.
The indigenous population at the time of the first European settlements is estimated to have been between 200,000
Thermal insulation
Thermal insulation is the reduction of heat transfer between objects in thermal contact or in range of radiative influence. Thermal insulation can be achieved with specially engineered methods or processes, as well as with suitable object shapes and materials. Heat flow is an inevitable consequence of contact between objects of different temperature. Thermal insulation provides a region of insulation in which thermal conduction is reduced or thermal radiation is reflected rather than absorbed by the lower-temperature body; the insulating capability of a material is measured as the inverse of thermal conductivity. Low thermal conductivity is equivalent to high insulating capability. In thermal engineering, other important properties of insulating materials are product density and specific heat capacity. Thermal conductivity k is measured in watts-per-meter per kelvin; this is because heat transfer, measured as Power, has been found to be proportional to difference of temperature Δ T. For comparison purposes, conductivity under standard conditions is used.
For some materials, thermal conductivity may depend upon the direction of heat transfer. The act of insulation is accomplished by encasing an object with material of low thermal conductivity in high thickness. Decreasing the exposed surface area could lower heat transfer, but this quantity is fixed by the geometry of the object to be insulated. Multi-layer insulation is used where radiative loss dominates, or when the user is restricted in volume and weight of the insulation For insulated cylinders, a critical radius must be reached. Before the critical radius is reached any added insulation increases heat transfer; the convective thermal resistance is inversely proportional to the surface area and therefore the radius of the cylinder, while the thermal resistance of a cylindrical shell depends on the ratio between outside and inside radius, not on the radius itself. If the outside radius of a cylinder is increased by applying insulation, a fixed amount of conductive resistance is added. However, at the same time, the convective resistance is reduced.
This implies that adding insulation below a certain critical radius increases the heat transfer. For insulated cylinders, the critical radius is given by the equation r c r i t i c a l = k h This equation shows that the critical radius depends only on the heat transfer coefficient and the thermal conductivity of the insulation. If the radius of the insulated cylinder is smaller than the critical radius for insulation, the addition of any amount of insulation will increase heat transfer. Gases possess poor thermal conduction properties compared to liquids and solids, thus makes a good insulation material if they can be trapped. In order to further augment the effectiveness of a gas it may be disrupted into small cells which cannot transfer heat by natural convection. Convection involves a larger bulk flow of gas driven by buoyancy and temperature differences, it does not work well in small cells where there is little density difference to drive it, the high surface-to-volume ratios of the small cells retards gas flow in them by means of viscous drag.
In order to accomplish small gas cell formation in man-made thermal insulation and polymer materials can be used to trap air in a foam-like structure. This principle is used industrially in building and piping insulation such as, rock wool, polystyrene foam, urethane foam, vermiculite and cork. Trapping air is the principle in all insulating clothing materials such as wool, down feathers and fleece; the air-trapping property is the insulation principle employed by homeothermic animals to stay warm, for example down feathers, insulating hair such as natural sheep's wool. In both cases the primary insulating material is air, the polymer used for trapping the air is natural keratin protein. Maintaining acceptable temperatures in buildings uses a large proportion of global energy consumption. Building insulations commonly use the principle of small trapped air-cells as explained above, e.g. fiberglass, rock wool, polystyrene foam, urethane foam, perlite, etc. For a period of time, Asbestos was used, however, it caused health problems.
When well insulated, a building: is energy-efficient, thus saving the owner money. Provides more uniform temperatures throughout the space. There is less temperature gradient both vertically and horizontally from exterior walls and windows to the interior walls, thus producing a more comfortable occupant environment when outside temperatures are cold or hot. Has minimal recurring expense. Unlike heating and cooling equipment, ins
Resin identification code
The ASTM International Resin Identification Coding System abbreviated RIC, is a set of symbols appearing on plastic products that identify the plastic resin out of which the product is made. It was developed in 1988 by the Society of the Plastics Industry in the United States, but since 2008 it has been administered by ASTM International, an international standards organization; the US Society of the Plastics Industry introduced the Resin Identification Code system in 1988, when the organisation was called Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc.. The SPI stated that one purpose of the original SPI code was to "Provide a consistent national system to facilitate recycling of post-consumer plastics." The system has been adopted by a growing number of communities implementing recycling programs, as a tool to assist in sorting plastics. In order to deal with the concerns of recyclers across the U. S. the RIC system was designed to make it easier for workers in materials recovery and recycling facilities to sort and separate items according to their resin type.
Plastics must be recycled separately, with other like materials, in order to preserve the value of the recycled material, enable its reuse in other products after being recycled. In its original form, the symbols used as part of the RIC consisted of arrows that cycle clockwise to form a triangle that encloses a number; the number broadly refers to the type of plastic used in the product, by chronological order of when that plastic became recyclable: “1” signifies that the product is made out of polyethylene terephthalate “2” signifies high-density polyethylene “3” signifies polyvinyl chloride “4” signifies low-density polyethylene “5” signifies polypropylene “6” signifies polystyrene “7” signifies other plastics, such as acrylic, nylon and polylactic acid. When a number is omitted, the arrows arranged in a triangle form the universal recycling symbol, a generic indicator of recyclability. Subsequent revisions to the RIC have replaced the arrows with a solid triangle, in order to address consumer confusion about the meaning of the RIC, the fact that the presence of a RIC symbol on an item does not indicate that it is recyclable.
In 2008, ASTM International took over the administration of the RIC system and issued ASTM D7611—Standard Practice for Coding Plastic Manufactured Articles for Resin Identification. In 2013 this standard was revised to change the graphic marking symbol of the RIC from the "chasing arrows" of the Recycling Symbol to a solid triangle instead. Since its introduction, the RIC has been used as a signifier of recyclability, but the presence of a code on a plastic product does not indicate that it is recyclable any more than its absence means the plastic object is unrecyclable. Sources: Below are the RIC symbols after ASTM's 2013 revision In the United States, use of the RIC in the coding of plastics has led to ongoing consumer confusion about which plastic products are recyclable; when many plastics recycling programs were first being implemented in communities across the United States, only plastics with RICs "1" and "2" were accepted to be recycled. The list of acceptable plastic items has grown since and in some areas municipal recycling programs can collect and recycle most plastic products regardless of their RIC.
This has led some communities to instruct residents to refer to the form of packaging when determining what to include in a curbside recycling bin, rather than instructing them to rely on the RIC. To further alleviate consumer confusion, the American Chemistry Council launched the "Recycling Terms & Tools" program to promote standardized language that can be used to educate consumers about how to recycle plastic products. Modifications to the RIC are being discussed and developed by ASTM's D20.95 subcommittee on recycled plastics. In the U. S. the Sustainable Packaging Coalition has created a "How2Recycle" label in an effort to replace the RIC with that aligns more with how the public uses the RIC. Rather than indicating what type of plastic resin a product is made out of, the four "How2Recycle" labels indicate whether a plastic product is Widely Recycled. Limited. Not Yet Recycled. Store Drop-Off; the "How2Recycle" labels encourage consumers to check with local facilities to see what plastics each municipal recycling facility can accept.
The different resin identification codes can be represented by Unicode icons ♳, ♴, ♵, ♶, ♷, ♸, ♹. ♺ is the portion of the symbol without the number or abbreviation. Recycling codes List of symbols Thermoplastic—softens with heat Thermosetting polymer—does not soften with heat Recycling Symbols for Plastics has symbols used in plastics recycling available in various formats for use in graphics
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