Episode 1 Bang Goes the Theory

Hello welcome to Bang, bringing you the science behind the headlines,

and tackling the issues that have a real impact on all of our lives.

Over the next eight weeks we will be covering everything from food

fraud to flu. Safety to sugar. From car seats to cardiac arrest, and

tonight, plastic. Without plastic the modern world

simply wouldn't work T wraps our food, covers our cables and keeps

us warm. It is found in places you would never expect.

We areer a standing on the roof of one of the UK's most famous venue,

everyone knows the Dome. What you might not realise is the

whole roof is covered with plastic, a teflon coat. It is the properties

of that plastic that helps keep this the landmark it is it is

relatively water and dirt repellent, and also a surprising fire

retardant. It is one of the whole world of uses of this remarkable

class of material. But good or bad, plastic keeps

hitting the headlines. Tonight Maggie helps one family find out

the truth about our exposure to plastic chemicals.

I discover how plastic waste could get into our food chain. These sand

hoppers will readily eat small fragments of plastic. Gen explores

the latest in repsyche -- Gemexplores the latest in recycling.

This car is running on diesel that used to be plastic. We meet a woman

whose arm was fixed with the help of plastic glue.

Plastic is practically everywhere, 260 million tonnes of it is

produced each year. It litters streets, waterways, and

oceans. It is bad for wildlife, but is it bad for us.

I don't think we realise just how big this problem is. Obviously they

wouldn't make it if it wasn't safe for you. We are using up the

world's resources to make it, and if we can't ri cycle it, it is

waste. It is brilliant what we can do with plastic.

Unfortunately, a vast amount of all our plastic waste still ends up in

landfill. But, there is a good news That's exactly what's happening at

this plant. What is amaze beg this place is

within about two hours they are able to convert filthy bales of

bottles, into pure, food-grade plastic.

I have been given exclusive access toity how this plant manages to

recycle a staggering five million bottles every single day. The

sorted bottles are chopped into tiny flakes, and all the glue and

paper washed off. Any stray bits of the mixed plastic are separated out.

The dense PET from water bottoms sinks to the bottom. While the milk

bottle flakes go to the top. They get even more high-tech cleaning.

Have you ever had that dilemma as to whether it is better to recycle

your milk carton with the lid on or off. Turns out it doesn't matter,

because they have got one of these. It is a pretty stunning piece of

kit. The milk bowls and lids are all shredded and washed and drifted

past a series of laser beam, they check out which is which, and all

the bits of lid are blown away. You are left with that, you can see you

have your semi-skimmed, your full fat and your skimmed. Then all the

bits of pure shredded white carton get sent off to the next part of

the process. What do these go on to become? They go on to be buckets or

wheelie bins. They are a valuable commodity, I love seeing the caps

on. Nothing goes to waste. Nothing goes to waste. Until recently

plastic waste could never be purefied well enough. But thanks to

this final bit of kit, every dirty old bottle can at last be made back

into a shiny new one. What happens is they heat it up and pop it in a

vacuum. It is almost like warming something up and chucking it into

outer space. Anything that is not the plastic they want just gets

vaporised. It disappears off it. Imagine beautifully clean flakes

with no smell. We raise the temperature to 150 degrees Celsius,

and we have this molten mass of milk bottles running down there, it

will come out like spaghetti out of there. I didn't expect that. That

is what it is. That is like a playdoh set! It is. Effectively it

will start to chomp them up and turn them into the little pellets.

This is it, literally, the end of the line. The loop is closed.

is how all the dirty old milk bottles come out now? Recycled,

food grade, high tensely -- high density Polyethylene Terephthalate.

That is astonishing. The same number of bottles will be made as

were recycled. It is encouraging to think for us as consumers that

local authorities and industries like this are beginning to tackle

the mountains of waste we produce. Not all plastic can be recycled

like this yet. It is such a waste, because it is made from the world's

most lucrative commodity, oil. This is crude oil, you can think of

it almost as a soup of all sorts of different hydrocarbons. There are a

huge quantity of chemicals that are derived directly from crude oil. I

have got two of them here. And the good thing about these two, is when

you mix them together, you can make a plastic.

Chuck a bit of this, and on equal quantity of this. Now when I start

mixing this lot up, you get a chemical reaction in there, that

starts making individual molecules, join up into long, long chains.

Long chains cold polymers, and that is essentially a plastic. The

plastic that this makes is called Polly your thain, that might sound

-- polyeurothane, you think it is something you have never heard of,

but it is insulating your house now. You may even be sitting on some.

That seems to have worked very nicely. Plastics are made in all

sorts of different ways, this is just one of them. If all these

plastics are made from stuff derived from crude oil, is there a

chance that these plastics can be turned back into something like

crude oil? Or, ideally, something like petrol or diesel that can

power vehicles? I'm going to try to cook up diesel

from waste plastic. The first stage is to vaporise the plastic without

burning it. So I'm making a super- hot oven, and a cooking pot that is

air tight and Oregan-free. I had to adapt it slightly, unmore element

to the build. Not only is a normal oven not hot enough for the process,

a normal cooking pot isn't up to scratch either -- one more element

to build. Not only is a normal oven not hot enough for the process, nor

is there a pot. The average cooking temperature is between 350-400

degrees. Time to switch on the oven, let's cook some plastic. Soon it

will get hot enough to start breaking down the plastic polymers

I put in the cooking pot. At that point they form flamable vapours

that rises up into the condensing column. Hopefully they will

condense and cool into fuel that we can collect in here, with the plan

we tap it off and run an engine on it. As it felts the plastic breaks

down into different length molecules, depending on the

temperature. For diesel I want molecules 10-20 atoms long.

That has been boiling away from a while now. Let's see what we have

managed to collect. It certainly looks encouraging.

Well, there is no doubt we have made a highly-flamable liquid fuel

from waste plastic. The question is, will it run an engine?

I can tell my fuel is too flamable to be pure diesel, but with help

from some friendly chemists, I can separate it out. Here is our diesel,

or what we hope is diesel. These guys have kindly allowed us to put

it in their vehicle. Let's find out if it works. Kate are you all right

to start her up? Keep going. Look at the level on that it has dropped

down. This car is running on diesel that used to be plastic, waste

plastic at that. # I went into a burning ring of

fire # I went down and the flames went

higher That was so satisfying, I could see

how delighted you were? I must admit that is not the best it could

be. Right at the cutting edge of research in this field there are

universities and technology companies working on exactly this.

And there is one company over in Ireland that is currently able to

turn one tonne of waste plastic into 800 litres of fuel. And not

like us, just a fairly skaech sketchy looking fuel, they can spes

-- fairly sketchy looking fuel, they can specify what it is for,

cars, trucking or areoplanes. Science is increasingly finding

innovative ways to recycle plastic, but the fact is, still far too much

of it is being chucked away carelessly. All that stuff ends up

on our roadsides, in fields or river banks like this one. What

that doing to the environment? Plastic pollution in the Pacific in

particular has received a lot of news coverage. Levels are so high

there that it has been called the Pacific Garbage Patch. Plastic is

seriously affecting the birds and animals in that area. But what's

going on closer to home? Professor Richard Thompson has been

monitoring levels of plastic on Britain's coasts and in the

waterways for the past ten years. Today he's taking me on a fishing

trip with a difference down the Tamar Estuary in Devon.

Richard, how do you go about fishing for plastic? Most plastics

are buoyant when they centre the sea. We will find them at the sea

surface or close to it. Using a manternet, it will stablise it on

the sea surface and a net behind it. The water goes through it and the

plastic collects at the end of it? It is the same type of apparatus

that is used worldwide for sampling plastic on the sea surface. What do

you want to catch? We will look at spring tides, ebb tide, flood tide,

and neap tide. We want to know how much of a pathway it is using fresh

water out into the sea. 3-2-1, go.

Over a third of the plastic that we produce is used for single-trip

application, we are taught that those are throwaway items and the

plastic at the end of its life has no value. It is that behaviour that

results in littering, accumulation of landfill and debris being left

behind by beach-goers. All of that material is accumulating in the

vefrplt. -- environment. This stretch of

water is meant to be unpolluted, so Richard doesn't expect to find much

plastic. If we have caught anything it is bad news.

Lots of seaweed, but definitely bits of plastic.

Everything from, they are small? The affects of small bits of debris

are less well known, and potentially quite different to

those that we might think of in term of larger debris causing

strangulation or last rations. We have got very fall -- lascerations,

we have very small pieces, and there is concern that some of these

small pieces could act as a vector for the transport of chemicals to

the creatures that digest them. Recent research suggests these tiny

bits of plastic attract pollutants, making them even more toxic to

wildlife. All of this is bad enough, but it turns out it is not the open

seas that are suffering the most. Liz, the reason I wanted to bring

you here was some of the plastic we were locking at in the sea, of

course that all washes up on shorelines. If I dig my hands down,

there is hundreds of small pieces of plastic. All of the shorelines

that we have sampled, worldwide, right the way from the Southern

Ocean, up to the Arctic, we found microsomeic fragments of elastic on

all of those shores. Even if plastic breaks down into minuscule

fragments, it will never disappear. Now there is a danger it can get

into our food chain a food chain that starts with tiny creatures.

One of the ones we looked at of these sand hoppers will readily eat

small fragments of plastic, like they will chew away at the corner

of plastic bag. These are the citers going through the really

tiny plastic particles? They would normally shred natural organic

materials. How much damage do you think it is causing these little

fellas? This is one of the great unknowns and something we are

trying to establish with the research we are doing at Plymouth,

which is what is the potentially harm for these creatures from

plastic in the environment. Thl we can prevent -- we can prevent waste

plastic getting into our oceans, it seems it will end up in the food

chain. We need to find out now how that might affect our well being.

Still to come, Liz find out how PVA, a plastic glue, is helping

orthopaedic surgeons about bone grafts.

This is fantastic science. First, back to the food chain, whether we

should be worried about plastic. Most food products are wrapped in

plastic, you don't really know what is in it. It always strikes me as

strange you get lovely spring water and you put it in a petro-chemical

plastic container. With breast cancer, for instance, you don't

drink the bottle of water you have left in the car in the sunlight. I

have always taken that on board, I don't know how true that is.

Stories of harmful chemicals from plastics have been in the news

again recently is the media just scaring mongering, or should we

really be worried. Like many families, the Nathaniels from

Nottingham, are concerned, because their life is full of plastic. Do

they really know how full it is, even in their own home. I have

asked them to collect as much as they can and pile it up in the

garden. There is so much I can't decide what to put in. After just a

few minutes it is clear this could go on forever.

I am going to stop you there, you are decimating your house. What

haven't you brought out? The fridge. Washing machine, the printer.

Obviously we are not going to start asking you to bring out all of the

cabling and lighting and things that are fixed. There were some

things that you didn't pick up. For instance fleece, and tin cans.

Where is the plastic in a tin can. It is inside the tin can. Yes,

plastics are in practically everything. It is the stuff that

comes into contact with the food that really worries the Nathaniels.

We don't use clingfilm, we cook in ceramic containers. If we buy

bottled water we will recycle it and reuse it. The families' worries

started when they read about hormone problems and plastics. Two

plastics in all products, Fisichella and phthalate can affect

our sex hor moans. They want to know -- Bishop and phthalate, can

affect our sex hormones. They want to know which what is safe.

reuse the bottle several times. Buying cuck come better is there

anything leaching into it. We use reusable bottle, what will food

bottles, is anything leaching out into our food. I have arranged some

tests. I'm sending urine samples for analysis to find out if we have

any plastic chemicals in our systems. But to answer their

questions about bottles and containers, I need to see an expert.

Dr Chris Howick is an expert for the Food Plastics Federation.

you are concerned about bisphenol and phthalate -- Bishop and

phthalate, this is not based on Bishop A, so it won't -- bisphenol

A, so it is not based on that, we can reassure them. Reusing plastic

water bottle, I do that all the time? As long as it is kept clean

and the integrity of the plastic article remains that it can't still

be used. What about the plastic? The great thing about plastics for

packaging cucumbers is the plastic would have been through the

assessment, so it wof been shown to only used the approved -- would

have been shown to only use the approved ingredients. The great

thing is it extends the shelf life of the cucumber from three days to

14. Chris told me all plastics used to package food are tested and

labelled appropriate low, include if anything they can be used in

dishwashers or microwaves. There is a huge safety obligation that the

regulators place on the plastics industry. Companies have to only

use the materials that are approved, they have to do testing on a

regular basis to show that even those substances that are approved,

do not transfer their ingredients into food in any levels that can

ever be considered a risk to public safety.

It is time fortunate nats and me to find out whether every day contact

with plastic means we have the chemicals in our systems and if so,

whether the levels are safe or not. All of us had levels of BPA, very

small amounts, but detectable levels of BPA, and you guys had

tiny amounts of phthalates. Just me and him? Just you two. Just to

reassure you, even if you had 250- times the amounts that showed up in

our tests, you would still have been all right. We have had every

assurance that they are very, very safe levels, minuscule levels. I

just wanted to know how you felt about that? It is nice to know that

the plastics are safe, and what we have found in us is not out of the

ordinary. Will you change anything as a result of this? I'm very, very

pleased to know that I can keep reusing the water bottles. That is

very useful. I'm going to read the manufacturers instructions more

carefully. The two types of chemical that is

we looked at with the Nathaniels have been well studied, and shown

to be safe at the levels to which we are normally exposed. Since we

made the film, a new report from the World Health Organisation, and

the United Nations environment programme has hit the headlines. I

caught up with one of the authors to discuss the findings.

The report summarises the decade of the chemicals interfering or

mimicking the action of hor hone moans, and in so -- hormones, and

in so doing caused a verse affects on bodily functions. Are we like

loo to be exposed to levels of these chem -- likely to be exposed

to levels of this chemical s that would have an adverse affect?

are close to 800 that may be endow cin disrupting chemicals. They are

in furniture, food and cosmetics. What this means is we experience

exposure to diverse chemicals from various sources as a cocktail.

Whilst individually these chemicals may not cause harm, collectively

they may have already reached harmful levels. Many things in

society that are endocrine issues, like reproductive cancers like

breast, have risen in the last 40- 50 years. The rise has been too

steep and too fast to be explained by genetics alone. Environmental

factors are generally accepted to be involved.

It is not hard to see just how complicated this is. On the one

hand, you have exposure to a vast number of chemical, and effects on

the body that might take decades to manifest them he was. It is clear

that much more research is needed. And in the meantime, we have to

weigh up potential risk against the very real benefits that plastics

can offer. One area where plastics can be

advantageous, is in modern medicine, as Carey Adams discovered. She has

always been a keen horse rider. But in 2008 suffered a freak accident.

I was having a riding lesson, I lost my stir rip and I felt his

haunchs go and I knew he would bolt. The next thing I know I was in

hospital, I had broken both my arm, one bone in my right arm, both

bones in the other arm it was bent at 90 degrees and extremely painful.

Carey had extremely painful surgery on both arms, with pins and plates

holding her wrists together. She was still in pain a year later.

doctors said it was unlikely to heal and suggested a bone graft.

do a bone graft surgeries normally remove healthy bone from other

parts of the patient's body, usually the pelvis. There is

another option far less painful and invasive, that is to produce a

synthetic bone graft. The key to making that a successful

alternative lies in plastic derived from this stuff, school glue.

Dr Karin Hing from Queen mareies ap University was on a mission to find

an -- Queen Mary's university was on a mission to find something with

the same properties as bone, it had to be light and strong and a

honeycomb structure that would allow real blood vessels and bone

to grow into it to create the perfect new bone. How did you

create the perfect synthetic bone graft. It is school glue, PVA.

Polymer, what is that? Calcium phosphate, with a dash much

silicone. That is chemically similar to our own natural bone.

Just a bit of pure water, can you pour that in. And now if you can

give that a mix together with the whisk.

I'm after a thick foam, but all my whisking is pointedly so far, that

is where the magic ingredient comes in. This is the polyvinyl alcohol,

20mls or so. Whisk away is it? Look Obviously you want it to foam up

like a meringue. That is amazing. I thought that

only happened with egg whites. How does the polyvinyl alcohol make

this happen? This frothing effect? It is more or less exactly the same

thing that happens when you do the washing up. The polyvinyl alcohol

is reducing the surface tension of the water. When you whip it up the

bubbles form and don't collapse again.

To turn this frothy liquid to a bone-like substance, we need to

gently dry it out at a low temperature, just like this one

that Karen made earlier. May I lift this? I'm really excited about this,

actually, it is fantastic science. This now represents a very bone-

like graft that you can place in a fracture to allow the natural

healing process to occur? Exactly. So the next thing we have to do is

fire it, just like you fire a ceramic pot. Then the ceramic

particles will fuse together as the temperature gets hotter, and that

gives it the nice solid structure and integrity. Because of the way

the PVA has foamed it, you have the macro and microstructure you need

to have it to work as a bone graft. One final hot firing burns off all

the PVA, leaving a synthetic bone graft that is plastic-free, to put

inside the patient. This is how Carey's bones were fixed. I went in

to have an operation, they put the bone graft in the fracture site,

sewed it up and sent me home. Finally, three years after the

accident I had the plate removed and I'm backed mying again.

-- riding again. I think it is great they found a way using an

every day material like glue to make a synthetic bone graft.

Plastics are transforming life beyond medicine too. Especially in

new media, like these completely flexible screens with revolutionary

plastic electronics. But, cutting- electronic -- cutting-edge plastic

research is not all electronics, out there there is a new chewing

gum, tastes like the same thing, but doesn't stick to the payments.

Look on the website to see me make plastic from potato starch. For

more follow the link for the Open University. See you the same time,

same place next week. Goodbye. Next woke on Bang Goes The Theory,