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London's Science Museum celebrates 100 years of plastics
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 22 - 05 - 2007


Strap on your PVC boots, hike up your nylon
stockings. It is time to celebrate the 100th birthday of
the world's first entirely synthetic material _ plastic. It
sparked a revolution in manufacturing, transport, fashion,
design and more, according to AP.
An exhibition at London's Science Museum, which opens
Wednesday, looks to a future including plastic blood and
airplanes which can shape-shift in mid-flight.
«It's gone from one little sample of brown material in a
man's hand to just being everywhere,» said Alison Conboy,
who helped put the exhibit together. «It's hard to imagine
a house that doesn't have them.»
Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland created his
phenol-formaldehyde polymer resin _ Bakelite _ in 1907.
Although scientists had long been tinkering with
plastic-like materials, such as vulcanized rubber, his was
the first fully synthetic material ever made.
Electrically resistant, chemically stable, heat-resistant,
shatter-, crack- and salt-proof, the material was an
enormous success, and soon Baekeland's New Jersey factory
was cranking out material used in billiard balls,
switchboards, tabletops, counters, gears and washing
machines.
The plastic family grew rapidly: rayon, cellophane, PVC,
or polyvinyl chloride, and polyethylene joined Bakelite in
the plastic revolution.
Some of the new products touched off consumer hysteria.
Touted by DuPont Co. in 1939 as «smooth as silk, strong as
steel,» nylons sparked melees as women mobbed department
stores to replace their old stockings.
«Plastics» was the one word piece of career advice
offered to Dustin Hoffman 's character in the 1967 film,
«The Graduate.» Also memorable was Mrs Robinson's _
actress Anne Bancroft's _ nylon-clad leg.
The principle behind nylon's success _ replacing an
expensive organic material with stronger, cheaper synthetic
one _ was repeated throughout the century.
Plastic bottles, Styrofoam cups, Teflon-coated frying
pans, Tupperware containers, Formica counters and plastic
wrap invaded the kitchen, while men and women all over the
world shed their silk and cotton for acrylic and polyester.
Members of the plastic family have a dizzying diversity of
uses. PVC can be part of a doorframe or a piece of
insulation, but it is also cut into credit cards, turntable
records, upholstery, or high-heeled PVC boots, such as the
ones worn by Julia Roberts in «Pretty Woman.»
Plastic is already all around us, but it might someday be
floating through our veins.
«The nature of plastic is such that you can create a
molecule that's very similar to hemoglobin _ the cells that
carry oxygen,» Conboy said. Beyond being more painless to
obtain, the material can be carried and stored more easily
than its bright red counterpart.
Although silicon might be more closely associated with the
computer age _ that could soon change as circuits are
printed directly onto plastic chips.
The flexible circuitry could be used for foldable displays
_ such as electronic pages that can be stuffed into a
pocket, solar panels that can be draped over tents, or even
electronic clothes.
Although planes are no strangers to plastic _ some are
made of nothing else _ the next generation of plastics
could fly them into the science fiction age. Shape memory
polymers change shape as they are heated _ and could be
used to build planes whose wings shorten or lengthen in
mid-flight.
But with plastic promise comes plastic peril.
Ninety percent of plastics are now made from oil, Conboy
said _ a product with an uncertain future. The same
resilience that made the material ideal has also meant its
environmental consequences last and last _ potentially
forever. Less than 10 percent of all plastic is recycled,
and the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research
agency, estimates that 100 billion plastic bags are
discarded each year in the United States alone.
Although plastic made its debut as a replacement for
expensive organic materials, bioplastics _ made from plant
matter _ might eventually replace environmentally
unfriendly ones, Conboy said.
Conboy pointed to one of the museum's exhibits, the Toyota
Motor Corp.'s I-unit, an electric car built almost entirely
of material derived from corn, sugar cane, and the African
kenaf plant.
«(Plastic) has changed so much in the past 100 years,»
she said. «Who knows what it will bring in the next
century.»
The Science Museum's free exhibition is called
«Plasticity _ 100 years of making plastics.»


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