QUIRKY SCIENCE

SYNOPSIS

Plastic has become ubiquitous. Impressive, since we’d been living without them for centuries! We have grown dependent on plastics in many ways. The production industry uses it to connect the parts that make machinery: our trillions of toilet bowls need it, let alone wash machines, computers, toothbrushes, pens and traffic lights. Can you imagine that plastic was accidentally invented for the purpose of making billiard balls? Though, its inventor had used something now called guncotton, which led to a rather explosive game of pool. In the end, the first plastic was discovered when someone witnessed how Southeast Asian farmers used the poop of a little beetle, called shellac, to preserve wood. When looking for a substitute, Leo Beakeland created ‘Bakelite’ and that substance turned out to be the first plastic. Nylon followed, the first man-made synthetic plastic, developed by Dupont to replace silk. Nylon isn’t that difficult to make yourself, amazingly. During WW2 all nylon production went into the manufacturing of parachutes, leading Dupont and others to stop producing pantyhose. It led to true nylon riots. Plastics were plain out popular. Indeed, the age of plastic had only just begun. But plastic is made with oil and is hard to break down, which calls for a solution. A company in the US is creating a bioplastic grown inside microorganisms. In fact - soon they’ll have plants cultivating plastic… plastic grown in the field? Now that is quirky!