system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do plastic cooking utensils not melt and how is it safe to use them with boiling heat (without chemical poisoning)?
gpt
"Plastic" is pretty much used as a catch-all word for polymers. Plastic *is* a polymer, but not all polymers are plastic.

Some polymers have an *extremely* high melting point. Teflon, for example, has a melting point of over 600°F (which is over 300°C). Some polymers have an even higher one than that!