Plastic Toy Dinosaurs! If I didn't have this same one, I definitely had some like it growing up. Though the final result is made only from glue, acrylic paint and hard plastic (Most likely PVC, or Polyvinyl chloride), many materials are used in the production process.
This one comes in four different pieces -- the body, the lower jaw, the tongue and the upper jaw.
Original models of each piece are sculpted from wax, and a relief is made by surrounding them with Silicone. The Silicone cavity left behind is used to create several hard plastic copies of the originals. One of each is then surrounded with clay puddy and plaster to create production molds of either half of each part. A final mold of each part is made by filling the production copies with molten Zinc, alloyed with Copper, Aluminum and Magnesium. This final mold is finally filled with PVC to create the actual plastic parts. These parts are cooled, glued together and painted using acrylic paint.
Though the PVC used in toys will hopefully stay in circulation for a long time, it is rarely able to be recycled and will likely end up as landfill waste. This is because it often contains additives such as chlorine, lead and several carcinogens which are difficult to remove in the recycling process. However, if pure PVC is used, it can be ground down to a powder to create equal quality plastic products.
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