This science teacher in Gosford, a New South Wales town north of Sydney, performed an experiment smashing plastic toys cooled in liquid nitrogen, much to the excitement of his students.

In the video, Jacob Strickling can be seen dipping the plastic toys in liquid nitrogen, and then coming down on them with a hammer.

The toys he is using are miniature plastic replicas of popular grocery products released by Australian supermarket Coles. The chain recently banned the supply of plastic bags, but ironically then introduced the plastic collectibles.

Strickling told Newsflare his experiment was to show how "ridiculous" the promotion was, and also demonstrated to students that cooling plastic changes its physical properties and makes it more brittle.

Australian supermarket 'Coles' recently banned the supply of plastic bags. Ironically a week later it introduced a major promotion called 'Coles Mini's' promotion. These are collectable miniature plastic replicas of popular products. When you spend a certain amount at the store, you get a Cole's miniature (packaged in plastic). The promotion is extraordinarily popular as families try to collect the entire set (some of the miniatures had limited production runs). In fact the miniatures are traded and sold online on sites like gumtree, sometimes for hundreds of dollars!
Australian Science Teacher Jacob Strickling thought the whole promotion was ridiculous, especially considering the recent ban on plastic bags. As a protest to the promotion, he cooled a number of the miniatures to -196 degrees celsius in liquid nitrogen and then to the delight (and encouragement) of his class smashed them to pieces. The lesson clearly showed that cooling a plastic changes the physical properties and makes the plastic far more brittle.
Strickling is a YouTuber and has created the popular Channel 'Make Science Fun'