But the big breakthrough - arguably the birth of the modern plastics era - came in , with the invention of Bakelite by the Belgian-born American Leo Baekeland. It was the first synthetic plastic - the first to be derived not from plants or animals, but from fossil fuels.
Baekeland used phenol, an acid derived from coal tar. His work opened the floodgates to a torrent of now-familiar synthetic plastics - polystyrene in , polyester in , polyvinylchloride PVC and polythene in , nylon in These brand new materials were considered the very height of glamour. But what really drove the industry's growth was the war effort, as plastics were used in everything from military vehicles to radar insulation.
Petrochemicals companies built plants to turn crude oil into plastic by the lorryload, with the predictable result that, come the end of the War in , the industry faced a horrendous glut. To keep production running, they were forced to think outside the box - or should that be inside the box? Andrea Sella offers the example of polyethylene terephthalate PET invented in , to show how versatile these cheap new materials could be.
Today it is used to make fizzy drinks bottles, because it is strong enough to hold two atmospheres of pressure. He then flourishes a soft winter glove, as well as a sheet of plastic for wrapping flowers. The only difference is the way in which it has been cast. And their properties can be changed just by tweaking their structure.
He takes out a baby's drinking cup and lets it drop to the concrete floor. It bounces cheerfully back. When they came in, they were replacing things like pewter, which gets dented, and glass and ceramics, which have the terrible problem that they smash.
Synthetic plastics had the added advantage that they seemingly lasted forever. No organisms had evolved that were capable of digesting these complicated and alien materials. But that advantage is, of course, also a great disadvantage. Plastic might sit in a landfill, or litter a street, for thousands of years without decomposing. Nylon, invented by Wallace Carothers in as a synthetic silk, was used during the war for parachutes, ropes, body armor, helmet liners, and more. Plexiglas provided an alternative to glass for aircraft windows.
The surge in plastic production continued after the war ended. After experiencing the Great Depression and then World War II, Americans were ready to spend again, and much of what they bought was made of plastic. In the postwar years there was a shift in American perceptions as plastics were no longer seen as unambiguously positive.
Plastic debris in the oceans was first observed in the s, a decade in which Americans became increasingly aware of environmental problems. In a major oil spill occurred off the California coast and the polluted Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire, raising concerns about pollution. As awareness about environmental issues spread, the persistence of plastic waste began to trouble observers.
Plastic also gradually became a word used to describe that which was cheap, flimsy, or fake. Audiences cringed along with Hoffman at what they saw as misplaced enthusiasm for an industry that, rather than being full of possibilities, was a symbol of cheap conformity and superficiality. Plastic became a special target because, while so many plastic products are disposable, plastic lasts forever in the environment.
It was the plastics industry that offered recycling as a solution. In the s the plastics industry led an influential drive encouraging municipalities to collect and process recyclable materials as part of their waste-management systems. However, recycling is far from perfect, and most plastics still end up in landfills or in the environment. Grocery-store plastic bags have become a target for activists looking to ban one-use, disposable plastics, and several American cities have already passed bag bans.
The ultimate symbol of the problem of plastic waste is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which has often been described as a swirl of plastic garbage the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean.
This was useful for a school thing I was doing. Nov 9, We would love to hear more about your school project! Kathy Jun 7, Growing up, I never saw plastic until the early 60's and that was the big garbage bags but were too expensive for me to use.
I bought one package and reused it for taking diapers too the laundry mat. E used waxed paper and paper bags for our lunch. I think it took plastic a long time to leave Belgium for Canada. Jun 8, Thank you for sharing your connection to this Wonder, Kathy! That is very interesting! Lol kid Mar 9, Mar 12, M Jan 26, Jan 26, We're glad you're having fun exploring Wonderopolis! Jan 20, Thanks for sharing your opinion, billy bob joe! We appreciate you stopping by Wonderopolis!
Jan 8, I really liked this article especially recyclebot the video. It was really interesting, I really liked it! Jan 10, Jack Jan 7, Hi, Jack! It sounds like you had fun reading this Wonder!
Jadyn Jan 7, From what I read, Alexander Parkes invented plastic. Hi, Jadyn! That's right! Great job reading the Wonder so closely! S Jan 7, I learned the first synthetic plastic was called Bakelite. It was invented in I also learned that people made plastic before Bakelite ,but Bakelite was the first synthetic plastic to be made. Mariah butler Jan 7, I know that Leo Hendrik Baekeland invented plastic. Simon Jan 7, Tony Jan 7, This was really interesting for me that how plastic had its first creator and then other people like Leo Hendrik Baekeland.
Luis Jan 7, I still have a question! When did they first test out the "first fully-synthetic, commercially-successful plastic". While we think of plastic as a 20th-century material, natural plastics such as horn, tortoiseshell, amber, rubber and shellac have been worked with since antiquity. Animal horns, malleable when heated, were used for many purposes and products, from medallions to cutlery. The comb-making industry was one of the biggest applications of horn in the 19th century.
By the middle of the 19th century, in the wake of industrialised goods production, some animal-derived materials had become increasingly scarce. Elephants were facing extinction if demand for their ivory, used in items from piano keys to billiard balls, continued. The same fate awaited some species of turtle, whose shell was harnessed for combs. Inventors soon attempted to tackle this environmental and economic problem, with many patents for new semi-synthetic materials based on natural substances such as cork, blood and milk.
One of the earliest was cellulose nitrate—cotton fibres dissolved in nitric and sulphuric acids then mixed with vegetable oil. Its inventor, the Birmingham-born artisan-cum-chemist Alexander Parkes , patented this new material in as Parkesine.
Considered the first manufactured plastic, it was a cheap and colourful substitute for ivory or tortoiseshell. This new plastic made items like combs and billiard balls affordable to many more people, democratising consumer goods and culture. Ironically, as movie stars made short hair popular in the s, the celluloid comb industry was short-lived—until manufacturers switched to making a newly fashionable product: sunglasses. Two spools of celluloid film made by Louis Le Prince in — The 20th century saw a revolution in plastic production: the advent of entirely synthetic plastics.
Belgian chemist and clever marketeer Leo Baekeland pioneered the first fully synthetic plastic in He beat his Scottish rival, James Swinburne, to the patent office by one day. His invention, which he would christen Bakelite , combined two chemicals, formaldehyde and phenol, under heat and pressure. Bakelite sparked a consumer boom in affordable yet highly desirable products.
It had a dark brown, wood-like appearance but could be easily mass-produced, making it ideal for bringing new design trends such as Art Deco to the masses. These companies are still the major producers of raw material resins for the plastics industry today.
These alliances were driven by the desire to make use of waste material from processing crude oil and natural gas. The experiment failed. Instead, due to a leak of oxygen into the vessel, they found a white waxy substance in a reaction tube. This was found to be a polymer of ethylene. Its first application was insulating radar cabling during the Second World War, but consumer products soon followed, from the plastic shopping bag and Tupperware to artificial hip and knee joints.
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