Everything around us is made of plastic from toothbrushes to cell phones to automobile parts. Plastic has come to dominate our daily lives but also creates problems as 9 million tons of plastic waste ends up in the oceans each year. Plastic takes a very long time to degrade. We can help address this by reducing single-use plastics and carrying reusable items instead. The history of plastics includes natural polymers that existed for thousands of years followed by developments like vulcanized rubber, Bakelite, and other early synthetic plastics that paved the way for plastics revolutionizing modern life and materials.

1. Polymer

2. • Toothbrush, clothing, food
containers, cooking spatulas,
pans, bottled water, automobile
parts, bicycle parts, eye
glasses, iPod, calculator,
mouse, computer parts, printer,
stapler, head phones, TV, clock,
flash memory housing, usb
connector, keyboard, shoes,
backpack parts, cell phone,
credit cards..
Everything around us is plastic.
The list is almost endless.

3. LDPE
We live in a plastic society.

4. Miracle stuff vs the stuff of nightmares
How do plastic objects come to dominate our daily lives?
o 9 million tons of plastic waste ends up in the ocean
each year.
Plastic takes too long to degrade.

5. Things you can do to help
oReducing single-use plastic
oCarrying reusable items
Our addiction to plastic
The plastic takeover

6. The Story of Plastic: TOOTHBRUSHES
Chew stick
3000 B.C.
Cattle bone
toothbrush
18th century
During the 17th and 18th centuries, toothbrushes were considered
luxury items.
Modern
toothbrush
Bristles : horsehair
What is the first thing you touch in the morning?
Handle: PP or PE
Bristles : Nylon
Toothbrushes of the future
oHandle can be made of metal or bamboo.
oBristle head can be replaced.
oBristles are packed more densely for longer lives.

7. The Story of Plastic: TOOTHBRUSHES
1
BILLION
Toothbrushes will be
discarded in the U.S. this
year.

8. Could we go for a day without plastic?
The short answer was no.

9. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

10. Polymers are macromolecules
built up by the linking together of
large numbers of small molecules
(monomer).
Polymers contain repeating units

11. Historical background
When we say that polymers are everywhere, we mean it.
Money doesn’t grow on trees, but polymers do.
Ages ago-
Building block of cellulose
Cotton
(C6H10O5)n
In fact, polymers have existed in natural form since
life. Ex. DNA
The monomer units of DNA are nucleotides,
and the polymer is known as a ‘polynucleotide’.
Natural fibers.

12. Ebonite bracelet from 1880
 Goodyear's discovery of the Vulcanization
process for natural rubber (NR)
1839- Charles Goodyear
1843- Nelson
 The first thermosetting material to be involved in a chemical
modification of natural material (NR:Sulfur = 100:30-32)

13. Replacing rubber for insulation in
electrical apparatus
do not become soft on heating
do not change their shape on heating
1905- Dr. Leo Baekeland
The first truly synthetic plastic
Phenol-formaldehyde
‘Bakelite’
A network polymer

14. The 1953 Nobel Prize
in Chemistry
1920s- Hermann Staudinger
 Polymers were composed of very large
molecules containing long sequences of
simple chemical units linked together
by covalent bonds
 Introducing the word‘ macromolecules’
to describe polymer
Development of commercial polymers

16. Classification of Polymers
Melamine formaldehyde
Polyethylene
Natural rubber
Polymethyl methacrylate
Polymers