Transcript: Make your own slime

Transcript of Audio

Make your own slime

Not all plastics have to be manufactured using elaborate industrial processes. Ah! [Gets the glued sheet of paper off his hand at last.]

Here’s one you can make at home.

Ah-choo! Werrrghh, gross!

Slime is the best type of plastic for grossing people out, and it’s really easy to make. Just don’t eat it – it’s toxic.

All you need is one part clear base glue, three parts water, two or three teaspoons of borax (borax is used in cleaning products, cosmetics and building materials) and a couple of drops of food colouring – all stuff you can find at your local supermarket.

To make the slime your glue needs to be pretty runny.

Cue the water. The most important ingredient of all, the colour – let’s face it, snot ain’t snot if it’snot green.

At the moment, the long chains of plastic molecules are completely separated in the mixture, which is why it’s pretty runny. Once we add the borax, dissolved in a bit of water, things start to change.

The borax is joining together the chains of molecules to make them into a tangled bunch. Scientists call this cross-linking.

The mixture becomes pretty thick – nice and quick … making it nice and gooey.

The exact amounts of water, glue and borax aren’t crucial. They’ll just change the goo-oo-ooeyness of your slime.

For the finishing touch, rinse it in a bit of water and then you have your very own slime.