A brief history of plastics, natural and synthetic

• Plastics are so common now that we cannot imagine life without them.
• The first use of plastics can be seen by the Olmecs in Mexico, playing a rubber ball in 1500 BCE.
• Polymers, the main component of all plastics, are made of carbon by a process of replicating the extremely long molecule by reacting it to itself.

Natural polymers are also made of other components like rubber, silicone and even DNA.

• Charles Goodyear patented ‘vulcanized’ rubber(mixing it with sulphur for durability) in 1840, creating it for the bicycle and later for cars.
• Wood has cellulose which itself is a polymer that makes it durable.
• The malleability of plastic also made it the raw material of the movie industry in 1870, marking the debut of celluloid(cellulose and camphor).
• Apart from the film and vehicle industry, polymer plastics were also used in electrical switches in submarines in 1851.