Mono Monday - 20th Century Inventions

The world's first fully synthetic plastic was Bakelite, invented in New York in 1907, by Leo Baekeland, who coined the term "plastics". 
Dozens of different types of plastics are produced today, such as polyethylene, which is widely used in product packaging, and polyvinyl chloride, used in construction and pipes because of its strength and durability. Many chemists have contributed to the materials science of plastics, including Nobel laureate Hermann Staudinger, who has been called "the father of polymer chemistry" and Herman Mark, known as "the father of polymer physics".


About 25 years ago a dear friend gave me her bonsai’d tree as she was going overseas for a few years.   I tried my best to keep it going but after about a year it gave up the ghost after a heatwave. Its stayed with me as I’ve never had the heart to throw it away. Its disintegrating now but the little figures that lived under the tree are still going strong because they’re made of plastic ; (


The success and dominance of plastics starting in the early 20th century has caused widespread environmental problems, due to their slow decomposition rate in natural ecosystems. Toward the end of the 20th century, the plastics industry promoted recycling in order to ease environmental concerns while continuing to produce virgin plastic. The main companies producing plastics doubted the economic viability of recycling at the time, and this is reflected in contemporary plastic collection. Plastic collection and recycling is largely ineffective because of failures of contemporary decision-making mechanisms that resulted in a complexity and amount of cleaning and sorting post-consumer plastics too high for contemporary methods. Most plastic produced has not been reused, either being captured in landfills or persisting in the environment as plastic pollution. Plastic pollution can be found in all the world's major water bodies, for example, creating garbage patches in all of the world's oceans and contaminating terrestrial ecosystems.



All info extracted from Wikipedia and its such a depressing thought that in just over 100 years we’ve managed to pollute the whole planet with plastic ugh!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic 


Thanks to Laurie for hosting.