Little things are often what are missed the most. How would you clean your teeth for instance? Toothbrushes are made out of plastics. You would not even wake up in time in the morning. Have a look at your alarm-clock. How many parts made out of plastics does it have? Without plastics there would not be any means of transport. A huge number of parts for airplanes, cars, ships and trains are made out of plastics. But where do plastics come from?
The first synthetic plastic was made from the plant material cellulose. In 1869, John Wesley Hyatt, an American printer and inventor, found that cellulose nitrate could be used as an inexpensive substitute for ivory. The mixture could be plasticized with the addition of camphor. Celluloid, as this new material was called, became the only plastic of commercial importance for 30 years. It was used for eyeglass frames, combs, billiard balls, shirt collars, buttons, dentures, and photographic film. In 1951, two young research chemists for Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville, made discoveries that revolutionized the plastics world. Today, the plastics they discoveredpolypropylene and polyethyleneare used to produce the vast majority of the thousands of plastics products all over the world. The raw material for plastics is petroleum.