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Task: Write a text or essay of 2-4 pages entitled “Life with polymers“ or “Life without polymers“ Still we are not plastic? Mr N., a robust man in his sixties, finally digs in the morning out of blanket containing hollow fibres and with disgust throws it away. The blanket is light, pleasant to touch, but not very warn and in the cold mornings like this one he blames himself for being imprudent when his old good feather blanket flew out of the house. He rubs his eyes to see better but even this cannot help; therefore he rather reaches his spectacles, which are nearly entirely made of plastic, including the frames but also the “glasses“. He could have a real glass, but with his six dioptres it would be too heavy and push his nose. Finally he stops the annoying sound coming from the alarm clock, which still remembers the time before his marriage and divorce. The old good alarm clock made of the first plastic still works so why to change it? From his bed he slides into the slippers knitted by his mother from viscose yam. He slowly shuffles to the bathroom where he cleans his few remaining teeth with a plastic toothbrush. He squeezes the toothpaste from the plastic tube, shoots water into the plastic cup, gurgles and puts on the dentals made of plastic. He combs the remnants of greyish hair with a plastic comb and shuffles back to the kitchen. On the plastic watch hanging above the door he finds out that he should increase the speed of getting dressed because otherwise he will not be on time to catch his means of transport. That is why he warms up a little water in the electric kettle to have some coffee, which he is going to drink in a hurry, but a few drops fell on his nylon shirt, which he decides to rather replace by a polyester T-shirt. He puts on his tesil trousers, takes up his plastic bag and says goodbye to a guinea pig Joe, the last remaining member of the family left after the divorce. Joe, instead of paying attention to him, is running in a plastic wheel. In the hall on the linoleum he slips into his shoes with an artificial sole, grabs a bunch of keys with plastic distinguishers and joins the bustle of the city. In front of the house he starts to solve the problem, which means of travel should be used. Shall he use a car of Trabant make, which with its plastic body looks, even after these 30 years, still preserved or to be pushed in the bus where he will hold a metal rod coated with a cable sleeve? Finally he decides to use a train where the plastics will pursue him minimally. What a mistake but he himself knows. He leaves the train after pressing a plastic button. In a crowd of people he leaves the station and looks around the street. Suddenly something hits his head, turns it so abruptly that his spectacles flip from his head and land on a dirty ground. He quickly picks them up exploring the surrounding to look for the attacker. Nearby he can see an empty bottle of sparkling water, which keeps being a toy of the wind that starts to rise. Mr N. shakes his head over some reckless fellows, grabs the bottle and throws it into the nearest container for plastics and checks the time on his watch. There is nothing to wait for, he slowly starts walking to work, on the way he passes the bakery where the shop assistant puts a couple of rolls for the customer into a polypropylene bag. For a while he is stalling at the traffic lights until a green little figure on the plastic background permits him to cross the street. Rather tired he opens the door of the workshop where he works. He puts on his overall with admixture of carbon and switches on his desktop computer (PC), a PC plastic case is resonating a little but it always does when the hard disc starts working. Immediately afterwards Mr N. inserts a CD (also plastic) into the computer and starts the programme. Through a plastic window with plastic glass he is looking at a huge hall where, by means of advanced technology, all plastics are sorted. Time is passing by and suddenly there is lunchtime. Mr N. stops the process of sorting the plastics, puts on a nylon coat and leaves for his favourite lunch. He is looking forward to fruit dumplings served on a plastic plate and hot cocoa in a mug with a plastic saucer. When leaving an excellent lunch he meets the director’s secretary, apparently with new silicone breasts. In the sanctuary of his small office he enjoys a couple of last undisturbed moments in his favourite plastic armchair. A horn sounds and the idyll is over, again a plastic data medium starts to turn and a new working process of sorting starts running. Plastic stoppers for the container N. 1, polypropylene bags for container N. 2, etc. The phone is rattling on the desk; Mr N. picks up a plastic receiver and tries to explain something to the person at the other end. The call ends, a sorting line slowly stops working. Today’s shift is ending; several hundreds of plastics reached its destination and can again continue to serve after further treatment. Mr N. takes off his overall, takes up a plastic soap dose and leaves to have a shower. On his way home he makes a call from his mobile phone, which is more of plastic than anything else. After the call is finished, he inserts a plastic token in to the cart, he immediately heads to the cooled food in a PVC dish, at the baker’s department he adds one bread roll and on the way to the cash desk he also takes a bottle of beer. When he is finally queuing, he starts looking for some money but does not have a single penny. There is no other way than to pull out a barex wallet, in which there is altogether thirty crowns and a plastic VISA. The shop assistant, having a look at the shopping and the card, rolls up her eyes, grabs it and waits until Mr. N. enters his PIN, while she is tapping the terminal with her artificial red painted nails. After one queue there is another. A bus station of suburban transportation is stuffed with people and Mr. N. asks himself where all these people are travelling. The bus stops at the station and people are attacking the front door; only by fortune they have not smashed from his hand a plastic Open Card prepared to use. Appropriately tired he enters his empty flat, turns the light on with a plastic switch, leaves the bag in the kitchen on the plastic tablecloth and warms up his evening meal in the microwave oven. Meanwhile he switches on an LCD TV, where a football match is currently running on the artificial grass. When looking at football players, his knee starts hurting; it will need an operation in the horizon of a couple of years. Time is relentless and also fooling about a plastic ball with his eight-year old grandson was not a wise thing to do. Watching of the game is interrupted by a peep of the microwave oven. For the goulash he opens a beer in a plastic bottle and on the plastic worktop he cuts yesterday’s bread. On the plastic tray he adds a plastic glass and cutlery and heads to the living room where, while eating, he watches the game and, at half past seven, he switches the programme by a plastic remote controller to learn what has happened in the modern plastic world. The TV presenter’s voice is sprawling around announcing that finally the mountaineers lost a week ago in the Alps have been found and only due to their lightweight waterproof equipment with a good thermal insulation they were able to survive. Mr. N. shakes his head and continues listening. “Next news can amuse some of you but it is not a joke…“ the silence is broken by the presenters voice “…several hospitals are announcing a lack of plastic transfusion and infusion sets and disposable plastic gloves. Instead of these things they were sent silage tilts (PE) and mulching fabric (PP).“ Mr. N. bursts laughing, he is going to take away the garbage and take a cookie from the plastic bag, which he feels like eating. On his way back he sits down at his PC to have a look if someone sent him an e-mail or not. When writing his password he drops crumbs onto a plastic keyboard. A new virtual world appears in front of him. On the screen he can see a photo of his grandson taken by a plastic digital camera, the photo from the same day where his grandson is together with his son and daughter in law, was printed on the plastic printer and now it is displayed behind Plexiglas. He starts yawning. He quickly checks the e-mails, nothing interesting, only a few special offers for plastic optical fibres, air wheels to protect from bedsore and a flyer for the sale in the Outlet. E-mail with a joke about a lady who refused to board the plane after her grandson had said that the plane components were also made of plastic. Normally he would probably laugh about it but not after a tough day today; the only thing he is longing for is to go to bed. He grabs for the controller and wants to switch off the TV when he is stopped by a voice of the presenter who is just announcing that today even a lot of men undergo plastic operations. Mr. N. turns off both the TV and the computer and heads for the bathroom where for the second time today he uses a plastic tooth brush. Looking in the mirror he starts to observe himself and examine whether we are still of flesh and blood. To his relief we are. Toothless, in his pyjamas, he goes to see the last living being that does not consider him to be a freak. Joe is chewing his leaf given to him three hour ago. When Joe sees Mr.N., he will look at him and Mr. N. would not give anything for it that Joe would like to tell him the leaf is “plastic“. With “Good bye, chap“, he is leaving for his chilly bed where he is awaited by “his blanket called frostie“, which is a familiar name of his blanket from hollow fibres. Before he takes off his light plastic spectacles, he orders his alarm clock and finally, after a long exhausting day, he buries under the blanket where he is going to dream about another plastic world. Discussion: Read each other’s essays and discuss the world of polymers. Are they really so important for our lives or could we do without them? Which items made of synthetic polymeric substances would you gladly give up and which, on the contrary, you would not. Which materials would you recommend to replace them? What would it mean for us? Probably, we would able to substitute majority of polymer substances. On the other hand, it would cause lack of traditional materials, increase of prices, increase of weight of the products and, sometimes, the esthetical value of the product. |
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