I. Plastics: What exactly are they?

What are plastics?

Plastics are a category of materials called polymers. All plastics are polymers, but not all polymers are plastic. Polymers are materials made of long and repeating chains of molecules. They can be both natural or synthetic (not found in nature). The material that makes the cell walls of plants, called cellulose, is an example of a natural polymer. Meanwhile, nylon and polyethylene (PE) are examples of synthetic polymers derived from fossil fuel.

But how did it all begin?

Humans have been using polymers for thousands of years. But, for the sake of time, let's skip forward to 1869, when John Wesley Hyatt created the first partially synthetic plastic, called celluloid. What motivated Hyatt to create celluloid?

Due to the increasing demand for billiards that were initially made of ivory, a New York firm was offering $10,000 to anyone who could find a substitute to the material. Why? Ivory was becoming short in supply, as it came from the slaughtering of wild elephants, who were facing threats of extinction. Celluloid, thus, represented the first time human manufacturing was not constrained by the limits of nature.

What about plastics derived from fossil fuel?

While celluloid derived from cotton fiber treated with camphor, the first fully synthetic plastic, Bakelite, was invented in 1907 by Leo Baekeland. Bakelite was, thus, the first plastic that contained no molecules found in nature, it was a combination of formaldehyde and phenol, a waste product of coal. Bakelite paved the way to further research and development of plastics, leading to the creation of polystyrene in 1929, polyester in 1930, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polythene in 1933, nylon in 1935. Why fossil fuel? Fully synthetic plastics derived from fossil fuels were resistant to heat, more efficient for mass production and cheaper than cellulose.

But how did the plastic industry grow to become what it is today?

During World War II, plastic had a huge demand. In the US, plastic production increased by 300%. It was everywhere from military vehicles to radar insulation. Petrochemicals companies, however, knew this demand wouldn't last once the war was over. So, they decided to explore the mass consumer goods market, and in 1948, launched, the widely used today, Tupperware, among numerous other products.

Plastic's versatile and long-lasting properties combined with it's cheap costs resulted in a rapid market expansion. It is also important to highlight that the post-war economic scenario provided the right context for the plastic industry to grow by fostering consumerism.

It was in 1955, when economist and retail analyst, Victor Lebow wrote in an article in the Journal of Retailing, the following quote:

Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate.

Food for thought:

Although synthetic plastic was initially perceived as humans' independence from the constraints of nature, what do they represent today? How is our dependence on plastic impacting the natural environment which we depend on so heavily to survive? Leave a comment below!

Take a deep breath, and head on to our next post as we explore the inconvenient truth of a life in plastic.

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Sources:

History and Future of Plastics. (2019, November 20). Science History Institute. https://www.sciencehistory.org/the-history-and-future-of-plastics

Freinkel, S., & Freinkel, S. (2011, May 29). A Brief History of Plastic’s Conquest of the World. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-brief-history-of-plastic-world-conquest/

Knight, B. L. (2014, May 17). A brief history of plastics, natural and synthetic. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27442625