I wonder why despite their ubiquity, there's almost no public awareness of polymers and their properties (outside of 3D printing enthusiasts), especially when c

I wonder why despite their ubiquity, there's almost no public awareness of polymers and their properties (outside of 3D printing enthusiasts), especially when compared to woods or metals. [a] I'm reminded of this by the slight misnomer of polyester fabric, which is actually polyethylene terephthalate (PET); the name polyester is more suited for polyurethane ester, and pairs with polyether (polyurethane ether). There's something similar with Styrofoam. [b] At some point I decided to learn how to distinguish plastics (beyond relying on resin codes [1]), and found this excellent online tool [2] intended for museums to identify what plastic artefacts are made of based on easily observed properties. It also has general info for each type of polymer, including typical modes of degradation. I find great irony in how most common plastics nearly unpreventably degrade to unusable condition over the scale of decades (think, brittle old rubber bands or cracked and yellowed vintage computer cases), considering how the microplastics they degrade into are notorious for sticking around for millenia. Learning about plastics has explained some phenomena I'd noticed before but had no idea behind the causes of: - Why CD and cassette cases, both made of brittle clear PS (polystyrene), make a distinct sound when tapped and are so often cracked. - Why some small plastic bags are milky clear, waxy, and not crinkly like most plastic bags: those are qualities typical of transparent PP (polypropylene); most bags are made of LDPE (low-density polyethylene). - Why the black plastic of some food trays (e.g., those of microwave dinners) has a telltale wood-grain-like surface finish--this seems to be an unintentional trait of injection-moulded temperature-resistant food-safe PP. [a] A decent fraction of people could say that steel is an alloy of iron with higher strength, that copper is commonly used in electrical wires, that pine is relatively soft and light, or what plywoods and fibreboards are made of. [b] Styrofoam is a brand of extruded polystyrene foam (EPS) board used as insulation, but the genericized use refers to expanded polystyrene foam (XPS) instead. More trivia: Plastic bags and foam are just as recyclable as rigid plastics (not counting the economic reasons behind most plastics recycling going to landfill anyway)--most municipal recycling plants reject them simply because they're difficult for machines to handle. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code [2] https://plastic-en.tool.cultureelerfgoed.nl/ https://plastic-en.tool.cultureelerfgoed.nl/