Have you ever considered how many things are made of plastic? Think about it, how many things have you used in the past 24 hours that are made from this product? Today the world makes and consumes about 600 billion pounds of plastic yearly, and the market is still growing about 5% a year. Plastic is one of the most popular and important materials used in our everyday lives. You are never more than an inch away from something made of plastic! Plastic is everywhere.
Plastics or plastic materials trace their roots to a tree, literally a rubber tree. Yes, natural rubber is actually derived from living trees. If you trace plastic back to 1600 BC, the Mesoamericans used rubber for items such as balls, bands, and figurines. Inventors continued to experiment with material derived from the rubber tree. Material pioneers were always working to perfect the plastic industry. In 1839, Polystyrene was invented, helping us create toys, cases and something we all use, a plastic fork.
Consider this; plastic is in your keyboard, your mobile phone, the electrical sockets in your home, and the pen you wrote with today. The PVC plumbing in the building you are in was even created by plastics engineers way back in 1926. Additionally, the Styrofoam coffee cup you drank out of this morning was invented by Ray McIntire for Dow Chemicals, and is made of – you guessed it – plastic! The plastic industry that started in the 1800’s and is still evolving today.
You now have an idea of just a few of the stops along the evolution of the plastic industry. Follow us as we start our journey, following the timeline of the plastic industry and learning how this material was created and has evolved. We encourage you to take a moment and think about how plastics have affected our lives; improving our daily living, creating jobs, sometimes even saving lives, and much more.