Plastic History
The word "plastic" originally meant a flexible and easily shaped material. It was only in the early 80's that the word 'plastic' changed to represent polymeric material.
Polymer itself means 'consisting of many parts' or consisting of many molecular chains. Natural polymers can be found in nature, for example cellulose from plants.
It was only in the mid-1800s that people began to create synthetic polymers or artificial polymers. Sometimes synthetic polymers also use a mix of natural materials such as cellulose, but usually synthetic polymers use many carbon atoms derived from petroleum and fossil sources.
Synthetic polymers have strong, light and flexible properties. Synthetic polymers have "plastic" properties. Before the invention of plastic, the industry was completely dependent on nature: one of them was paper made from wood.
Paper is easy to shape and lightweight, but not strong, does not last long, and consumes a resource of wood, which is important for the earth's oxygen availability and environmental protection.
The use of other materials, such as metals, stones, bones, horns, teeth, is also not easy to obtain and easy to process, so scientists are looking for alternative materials that can be mass-produced, light, strong, durable, inexpensive. and is not completely dependent on natural resources.
Thus, the plastics revolution began in the industrial world when synthetic polymers, later known as plastics, were discovered and developed.
Although mostly for economic and practical reasons, the plastic that is overwhelming us right now was originally created as a solution to sustain the availability of natural resources in the world.
