Original meaning of the word plastic was “easily shaped and pliable”Now we think of the word plastic as a category of polymers made of long chains of moleculesToday, synthetic polymers are made using mostly carbon atoms provided by fossil fuelsSynthetic polymer chains are usually longer than the ones which are found in natureThe long chains and patterns make polymers strong, lightweight, and flexibleBefore plastics were created materials such as tortoiseshell, horn, linen, ivory, and wood were used for different items in day to day lifeExpensiveBegan running out of these resources HYATT’S CELLULOID1869 – $10 000 reward was offered for whoever could find a replacement for ivoryJohn Wesley Hyatt created celluloid with treated cellulose derived from cotton fiber, and camphorCelluloid was easily moldable but lacked the bounce and resilience of ivoryIt was highly volatileIt was inexpensive and sparked the plastic revolution, showed we are not constrained by natureBAEKELAND’S BAKELITELeo Baekeland invented Bakelite First completely synthetic plastic, contained no natural moleculesBaekeland was trying to find a replacement for shellac, a natural electrical insulator made of the excretions of the female lac beetleIt took 15000 beetles 6 months to produce one pound of shellacBakelite was a combination of formaldehyde and phenolIt was durable, heat resistant, and well suited for mass productionPlastic was inexpensive and greatly expanded the goods consumption of the middle class1920s AND 1930s New materials were coming from labs around the worldCellulose acetate was created, which was semisynthetic because plant cellulose was a base ingredient, it was adaptable like celluloid but not flammablePolystyrene was c
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