Plastics Over Time

History of plastic

Parkesine -1862

Celluloid - 1870

Bakelite - 1907

Polystyrene - 1929

1955

• LIFE Magazine article “Throwaway Living”

• New idea: “waste saves time”

Supply

Recovery for recycling

Production

Demand

Consumption

Austria Azerbaijan Belarus BelgiumLuxembourg Bulgaria Czech Republic Denmark Finland FranceGermany Greece Hungary Iceland IrelandItaly Kazakhstan Lithuania Netherlands

Norway Poland Portugal RomaniaRussia Slovakia Spain Sweden SwitzerlandTurkey Turkmenistan Ukraine United KingdomUzbekistan

The U.S. consumes as much oil as:

COMBINED!

Plastic bags: production

• 1974 U.S. – Retail giants Sears and J.C. Penney switch to plastic shopping bags

• 1977 U.S. – Grocery stores begin offering plastic bags

• 1.2 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide each year greater than 1 million bags per minute

• Average use before disposal = 12 minutes

Plastic bags:costs

• Ingestion of plastic by sea turtles is increasing.

• 12 million barrels of oil are used to make plastic bags for the U.S. each year.

• In San Francisco alone, $8.5 million was spent annually to deal with plastic bag litter.

Toothbrush• 3500 B.C. Egypt – wooden “chew stick”• 1000 A.D. China – ivory handle and

boar bristles• 1780 A.D. England – first mass-

produced toothbrush is made out of cattle bone and pig hair bristles

• 1938 A.D. – nylon replaces animal bristles

Contact lens

• 1887 Germany – first lenses made of blown glass

• 1888 Switzerland and France – first use of contact lenses to correct optical defects

• 1936 United States – first construction of plastic contacts

Food wrap

• 1851 France – wax paper invented by Gustave Le Gray for use in photography; later used for food wrap

• 1933 U.S. – Saran wrap accidentally discovered by Ralph Wiley; 1st sprayed on military planes and to cover upholstery

• 1953 U.S. – Dow Chemical Co. designs Saran cling wrap for household use

File folder: paper or plastic?

Surfboards

• 400 A.D. Polynesia – surfboards originate and weigh 77–200 lbs

• 1926 U.S. – Tom Blake designs a hollow surfboard from redwood trees

• 1946 U.S. – Pete Peterson designs the first plastic board using fiberglass

• 1949 U.S. – Bob Simmons creates boards with a styrofoam core

Coffee cup

• Coffee cups can be made from just about anything: ceramic, metal, paper… or styrofoam.

Drink carrier

1950’s: Aluminum

1930’s–1940’s: Wooden crate

1960: Plastic 6-pack ring

1940’s to present: Cardboard

• First drinking straws were hollow stems of natural rye grass

• 1888 U.S. – Marvin Stone makes the first paper straw

• 1960’s – plastic straws replaces paper ones

Drinking straw

Music recordin

g

• 1877 U.S. – Thomas Edison makes recordings on the surface of a piece of tinfoil wrapped around a rotating “phonograph cylinder”

• 1888 U.S. – Emile Berliner designs the disc-shaped gramaphone record out of vulcanite (hard rubber)

• 1962 Netherlands – Philips produces cassette tapes made of plastic

• 1982 Japan and Netherlands – Philipsand Sony launch plastic compact disc