Plastic History - Origin of Plastic

Over the last 150 years, plastic products have managed to revolutionize our science, automobile industry, aerospace, transport, and medicine, enabling us to produce items of countless shapes, sizes and features. History of such influential product can be found on these pages.

History of Plastics

History of plastic started in the mid-1800 when chemist all round the world started experimenting with rubber, striving to eliminate natural ingredients from its recipe (natural latex) and wanting to make it fully synthetic product that can be mass produced all around the world. This exciting period of time soon gave birth to the first plastic compounds, which after decades of perfection finally entered mass production in early years of 20th century.

Since the dawn of modern humanity, people of many civilizations used natural rubber as a means of protecting their equipment and items from water and other natural elements, as well as building blocks of many useful articles. This natural rubber (mixture of organic compounds such as latex and water) was gathered from rubber producing plants, and therefore its production was greatly limited by natural resources. To combat this problem, many scientists started working on fully synthetic alternatives. With the help of the chemist who identified that building block of rubber were polymers, the first man—made plastic was ready to be produced.

First man who managed to produce plastic in a laboratory was Alexander Parkes(1813 - 1890), metallurgist and inventor from England. He spent his entire life working on various techniques of rubberizing items, and in 1950 he finally managed to combine organic material found in cellulose and other substances to form first man-made plastic called Parkesine. He immediately saw that plastic has much better abilities than rubber –it could be industrially produced in large quantities, easily molded when hot, sturdy and durable when cooled. Even though he did not manage to become rich man from his invention (his large scale manufacturing business failed after few short years of work, mostly because high price of plastic and imperfect recipe which caused Parkesine to easily break and be flammable), but his exploits served managed to introduce plastic to the general population and scientists in both Europe and North America.

First notable successor of Parkesine was John Wesley Hyatt‘s Cellulloid plastic, which was derived from cellulose and alcoholized camphor. In the beginning, celluloid was used as a substitute for ivory-made billiard balls in late 1860s, but they quickly went out of the style after initial recipe proved to be very flammable. This setback did not cause destruction of celluloid business because by late 1800s it became foundation and building block of movie and photography industry.

With plastic being mostly used only for specific purposes (film and photography), first years of 20th century finally brought an age of plastic that we know today with the introduction of Cellophane and first fully synthetic plastic compound called Bakelite. Created by the famous inventor Leo Baekeland (born and raised in Belgium, and then moved to United States in 1890s where he remained for the rest of his life), the compound he named Bakelite enabled for the first time true revolution of plastic and the birth of the modern plastic industry. With superior features, durability and ease to use, Bakelite soon found its way into thousands upon thousands of products in Europe and North America (from jewelry, to common items, construction, scientific instruments, packaging, automobiles and airplanes). After Bakelite, new and improved plastic products started appearing in regular schedule (Catalin, Plexiglas, Teflon, Nylon, etc.). The era of Bakelite finally ended after the end of WWII when chemist produced much more stable and durable plastic compounds (most notably ABS, Styrofoam and Lexan), which remained in use even to this day.

In modern society, plastic represents one of the basic building blocks of our industry, construction, common items, transport items, vehicle manufacture and science. No matter where you look you can find at least one plastic item, and because of that, governments all around the world are striving to found solution for plastic waste disposal. Large amount of disposable plastic products (bottles, plastic bags, etc.) are heavily controlled and manufactured in the way that recycling is easier and in some case even biodegradable.

History of Plastic Recycling

Plastic is one of the most popular building materials of modern human culture, but its widespread use brought us many problems and caused environmental dangers of unprecedented scale. Since its mass adoption in the 1950s, discarded plastic products have filled landfills and contained seas and earth with materials that will not break down for centuries and centuries. To combat this problem, governments of many countries around the world formed rules for recycling plastic, established industrial processes for transforming discarded plastic into useful materials, and educated communities to the benefits of recycling all around the world.

One of the largest recycling efforts of the 20th century happened of course during wars when governments demanded of their people to donate their unused metals, tires and even nylon, but the notion of recycling plastic came only after the environmental revolutions of 1960s. During those years people really started noticing the impact of plastic waste on environment, and started laying groundwork for future recycling efforts. First plastic waste recycling mill in the world was created in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania in 1972, marking the beginning for all future recycling plants. As years went by, government programs and eco-friendly communities slowly started to educate regular people into habit of recycling and forcing manufacturers to start producing easier to recycle plastic. Their efforts came to life during 1980s and 1990s with the adoption of PETE and HDPE plastic, which were designed with recycling in mind. These recyclable plastic products were introduced by Plastic Bottle Institute of the Society of the Plastics Industry and clearly marked on their containers by logo of triangle made of arrows.

The process of recycling plastic is not as simple as recycling paper, glass and metals, because the greater number of steps involved for extracting dyes, fillers and other additives that can be found in “virgin” plastic. First step in their recycling is sorting by the type of resin that is in their structure (seven basic types) and in some cases additionally sorted by color. After that, plastic is chopped into small pieces, cleaned to remove debris and small residue, melted down and compressed into pellets named nurdles. These small pellets are then transported to plastic processing plants where they are introduced into manufacturing process.

Because of the complicated recycling process and unwillingness of people to properly dispose of their unwanted plastic, recycling rates of plastic lag far behind of other items such as paper, glass and metal. In 2008 only 6.5% (2.2 million tons) of post-consumer plastic waste was recycled, 7.7% (2.6 million tons) was burned for energy and 85.5% (28.9 million tons) went to landfills.

Timeline of Plastic History

• 1284 – Oldest surviving historical record of naturally made plastic compounds from horn and tortoiseshell.
• 1823 – Macintosh discovered rubber. He used it to protect cotton from moisture.
• 1845 – Inventor Bewley produces natural rubber from plant gutta percha. This plant became used regularly during 19th century, especially to produce insulation for underwater telegraph cables.
• 1862 – Londoner Alexander Parkes unveiled first man-made plastic compound. He named it "Parkesine”, but it quickly disappeared from public use because of high costs.
• 1869 – Failure of Parkesine led to the creation of Xylonite by the hands of Daniel Spill. His company also went bankrupt after few years.
• 1869 – American inventor John W. Hyatt invented Celluloid, which entered mass production in 1872.This was successful plastic product.
• 1897 – Two German researches developed Galalith, a type of plastic that is still in use today (mostly as plastic buttons).
• 1908 - Jacques E. Brandenberger invented Celophane – light, non-reactive and easy to use plastic compound that become very successful after DuPont made it water-proof in 1927. It remains widely used even today.
• 1909 –New York chemist Leo H. Baekeland created first fully synthetic plastic product called Bakelite. It was received with great enthusiasm, and was used in everything, from jewelry to cars and airplanes. Original pieces of Bakelite plastics are now considered rare and precious.
• 1920s – Jewelry manufacturer Coco Chanel introduced jewelry made from Bakelite.
• 1920 – Creation of Polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. This invention brought to the close tradition of cultivating plants who gave us natural rubber. PVC is most commonly used plastic product of the modern world.
• 1925 – The term “Plastic” was introduced.
• 1927 – After patent for Bakelite expired, Catalin Corporation started producing plastic “Catalin” with the same formula as Bakelite. Their 15 new colors proved to be very successful.
• 1931 – Plexiglas, strong and transparent type of plastic was invented in two different laboratories. It instantly becomes success.
• 1938 – Chemist Roy Plunkett discovered Teflon, very durable and resistant plastic that is today most commonly used in kitchenware.
• 1939 - Nylon was created, to the relief of all women in the world.
• 1946 – After World War II, chemist all around the world improved the formulas of Catalin and Bakelite, making them obsolete.
• 1948 – ABS was made, plastic which is today used in millions of products – from Lego pieces to golf club heads, musical instruments, car parts, and piping.
• 1953 – American chemist Daniel Fox invented a new type of polycarbonate resin thermoplastic that was very durable and almost bulletproof. Named “Lexan”, this plastic became instant hit and is used even today in various modern products, such as iBook, iPod and many others.
• 1954 – Styrofoam becomes available.
• 1965 – Chemist Stephanie Kwolek develops light, extremely resistive and durable plastic compound that is today known under the name of Kevlar. Today, this plastic is used by military and police in bullet resistive protective wear.
• 1998 – Bakelite bracelet under the name of “Philadelphia bracelet" reached the price of 17 thousand dollars at Treadway/Toomey auction.