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Plastics in the home: welcome guests

Plastics first appeared in family homes in the 1960s in the form of synthetic wall-to-wall carpet made from polyester and polypropylene, and they have been houseguests ever since, with a multitude of applications.


Of all the plastics found in the home, polypropylene has the widest variety of uses.

It doesn’t rot and is not affected by water, so it’s an obvious choice for both construction as well as for fittings such as plumbing. In addition, production processes can be modified to improve the polymer’s mechanical properties, such as rigidity, impact resistance, temperature stability and chemical resistance. Polypropylene is also the raw material for numerous non-wovens (tissue produced by matting rather than weaving) used by the building industry to prepare the ground before construction and to stabilize insulation materials. Today’s homes also have all sorts of tubing and piping to sheath electric wiring or distribute water and heat. Polypropylene is ideal for this ribbed flexible tubing or rigid piping; compared to traditional materials, it is cheaper and easier to use as well. For these applications, Total Petrochemicals markets copolymer resins with very high resistance to compression, impact, folding and perforation.



Polypropylene is all around us at homes: it is the main material in the honeycomb-insulation sheets on the back of refrigerators and is also used to make flower- and plant-pots, garden furniture, paint buckets, sand/gravel bags and even vacuum-cleaner bodies. Looking ahead, we are likely to see more and more mono-material items. Carpets are a good example here; polypropylene is already used for the weft, the nap and the bonding between them as well. That makes them much easier to recycle.


Did you know?
In the United States, people in cyclone zones can now protect their windows and even their whole house from storm damage using polypropylene honeycomb sheeting. Specially tested and approved for this use, these light polymer sheets – which can be attached to permanent fastenings – are fast replacing wood because they don’t rot or deform and are also translucent, so they let plenty of light in.




Polyethylene: driven by rotomolding

Polyethylene is also widely used around the house, largely thanks to improved rotomolding* processes and the development of specific new grades: metallocenes. The main applications for rotomolded metallocenes are the individual tanks used to store drinking water or heating oil or to dispose of sewage. But a number of designers, above all in Italy, have spotted the opportunities opened up by this new technology to produce rotomolded furniture, light fixtures and even a transparent polyethylene bathtub.

The good processability of metallocenes opens up almost unlimited possibilities as regards shape and volume. In addition, the polymer undergoes less stress during processing, so it will have much better long-term solidity. And if that’s not enough, reinforcing struts can be introduced into the actual body of the item being molded.

Total Petrochemicals is a leading player in the development of innovative metallocenes and its research teams recently developed a specific new grade for under-floor heating pipes – a fast-growing market today.



* See “Polyethylene in rotational moulding applications"



Polystyrene for insulation

Household applications are easily the main driver of the polystyrene market. Its main use here is as a building insulation material. By using expanded or extruded polystyrene, builders can take full advantage of one of the best acoustic and thermal insulating materials known to man: air. In addition, polystyrene does not suffer from exposure to water and can be stored on building sites without the need for special precautions. With rising energy costs and increasing concern about the threats associated with global warming, the insulation materials market is posting strong growth: between 5% and 10% per year in most European countries. In order to boost the environmental advantages of using polystyrene here, a number of studies are under way on “reconversion” of insulating materials. One possible solution is incineration coupled with heat recovery.

Another domestic use for polystyrene is in refrigerators, particularly the plastic liner on the inside walls of the unit. Polystyrene is ideal here: it is unaffected by microbes and bacteria and it shows good resistance to the stress-cracking that can result from exposure to fatty deposits. Last but not least, as a commodity material that is both cheap and easy to process, polystyrene is used in numerous disposable consumer products, such as the famous Bic ball-point pens.