The conventional plug and the new design plug are made from ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), a very common thermoplastic. This material is suited to the role of a plug as it has the following properties:

•          It has high impact resistance so it can withstand the knocks delivered from common use.
•          Is a very good electrical insulator to protect the user from shock.
•          It is also recyclable as it is a thermoplastic. This is a very important factor as the amount of plugs produced is so large, if they were un-recyclable the impact on the environment would be significantly greater.

The manufacturing process used to mould these plugs is injection moulding. This is where a thermoplastic is heated into a liquid state and then forced into a split mould at high pressure using a hydraulic press. The advantages of this are that any faulty items can be put straight back into the hopper, and re-moulded. Also any shavings or waste product can be put back in so the process has minimal waste. Also the moulds can be used hundreds of times before they need replacing. The only disadvantage is that the split moulds are very expensive to replace once worn down.

The plug could have been redesigned as there were flaws with the old, traditional design. The primary flaw in the old design was that the plug could not be easily stored, and very often took up a large proportion of the packaging. Another flaw with the traditional design is extension cords were very large and two plugs could not be compacted into a small space, taking more materials to produce extension leads and moreover, not as convenient for the user. The new design eliminates these issues by the folding design making storage and packaging simple. And the clever folding design allows multiple plugs to be connected into the same area as one traditional plug, saving on materials and rendering them more usable and convenient for the user.