SPEAKER_00: Amazing, fascinating stories of inventions, ideas and innovations. Yes, this is the podcast about the things that have helped to shape our lives. Podcasts from the BBC World Service are supported by advertising.
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SPEAKER_01: Leo Baekeland wrote those words in his journal on July 11th, 1907. He was in a good mood, and why not? At 43 years old, Leo Baekeland had done well for himself. He was born in Belgium. If it had been up to his dad, he'd still have been there, mending shoes. His dad was a cobbler. He'd had no education, and he didn't understand why young Leo wanted one. But his mum, a domestic servant, had other ideas. With her encouragement, Leo went to night school and won a scholarship to the University of Ghent. By the age of 20, he had a doctorate in chemistry. He married his tutor's daughter. They moved to New York, and Leo made enough of a fortune from inventing a new kind of photographic printing paper that he could have retired there and then. He bought a house in Yonkers, overlooking the Hudson River, and he built a home laboratory to indulge his love of tinkering with chemicals. In July 1907, he was experimenting with formaldehyde and phenol. The cheerful journal entries continued. July 18th.
SPEAKER_04: Another hot, sultry day. But I do not mind it, and thoroughly appreciate the luxury of being allowed to stay home in shirt sleeves and without a collar.
SPEAKER_01: Not all rich men were so happy. Leo knew that. How about these slave millionaires in Wall Street who have to go to their money-making
SPEAKER_04: pursuit notwithstanding the sweltering heat all day spent in laboratory? He concluded with an unmistakable note of satisfaction.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps Leo mused about whom he had to thank for this enjoyable, carefree life. The next day's journal entry records that he wired $100 to his mother. Four days later.
SPEAKER_04: This is the 23rd anniversary of my doctor ship. How these 23 years have gone fast. Now I am again a student, and a student I will remain until death calls me again to rest.
SPEAKER_01: Leo wasn't entirely right about that. When death did call him, at the age of 80, he'd become an eccentric recluse, dining on tinned food. But what a life he lived in the meantime. He made a second fortune. He became famous enough that Time magazine put his face on the cover. What Leo Bakalund invented that July was the first fully synthetic plastic. He called it Bakelite. And he was right about the future importance. Plastics are now everywhere. When the author Susan Frankel set out to write a book on them, she spent a day noting down everything she touched that was plastic. The light switch, the toilet seat, the toothbrush, the toothpaste tube. She also noted everything that wasn't. The toilet paper, the wooden floor, the porcelain tap. By the day's end, she'd listed 102 items that weren't made of plastic, and 196 that were. We make so much plastic, it takes about 8% of oil production. Half for raw material, half for energy. The Bakelite corporation didn't hold back in its advertising blurb. Humans, they said, had transcended the old taxonomy of animal, mineral and vegetable. Now we had a fourth kingdom, whose boundaries are unlimited. That sounds hyperbolic, but it was true. Scientists previously had thought about improving or mimicking natural substances. Earlier plastics, like celluloid, were based on plants. And Bakelind himself had been seeking an alternative to shellac, a resin secreted by beetles that was used for electrical insulation. Yet he quickly realised that Bakelite could become far more versatile than that. The Bakelite corporation christened it the material of a thousand uses. And again, they weren't far wrong. It went into telephones and radios, guns and coffee pots, billiard balls and jewellery. It was used in the first atomic bomb. Bakelite's success shifted mindsets. What other artificial materials might be possible with properties you couldn't necessarily find in nature? In the 1920s and 30s, plastics poured out of labs around the world. There was polystyrene, often used for packaging. Nylon, popularised by stockings. Polyethylene, the stuff of plastic bags. As the Second World War stretched natural resources, production of plastics ramped up to fill the gap. And when the war ended, exciting new products like Tupperware hit the consumer market. But they weren't exciting for long. The image of plastic gradually changed. In 1967, the movie The Graduate famously started with the central character, the young Benjamin Straddock, receiving unsolicited career advice from a self-satisfied older neighbour.
SPEAKER_01: Just one word, the neighbour promises, steering Benjamin towards a quiet corner, as if about to reveal the secret to life itself.
SPEAKER_01: And the line became much quoted because it crystallised the changing connotations of the word. For the older neighbour's generation, plastic still meant opportunity and modernity. For the likes of young Benjamin, it stood for all that was phony, superficial. Airsats. Still, it was great advice. Half a century on, despite its image problem, plastic production has grown about 20-fold. It'll double again in the next 20 years. That's also despite growing evidence of environmental problems. Some of the chemicals in plastics are thought to affect how animals develop and reproduce. When plastics end up in landfill, those chemicals can eventually seep into groundwater. When they find their way into oceans, some creatures eat them. But there's another side to the ledger. Plastic has benefits that aren't just economic, but environmental too. Bottles made with plastic parts are lighter, and so use less fuel. Plastic packaging keeps food fresh for longer, and so reduces waste. If bottles weren't made of plastic, they'd be made of glass, and which would you rather get dropped in your children's playground? Eventually we'll have to get better at recycling plastic, if only because oil won't last forever. Some plastics can't be recycled. Bakelite is one. Many more could be, but aren't. Only about a seventh of plastic packaging is recycled, far less than for paper or steel. For other plastic products, the rate is lower still. How about technological solutions? Fans of science fiction will enjoy one recent invention. The Protocycler. Feed it to your plastic waste, and it gives you filament for your 3D printer. The Protocycler is as close as we can get today to Star Trek's replicator. In its day, Bakelite must have felt as revolutionary as that Star Trek replicator feels to us. Here was a simple, cheap, synthetic product that was tough enough to replace ceramic tableware or metal letter openers, yet beautiful enough to be used as jewellery, and could even replace precious ivory. It was a miracle material, even though, like all plastics today, we now take it for granted. But manufacturers haven't given up on the idea that you can make something precious and practical from something cheap and worthless. The latest techniques upcycle plastic trash, mixing it with agricultural waste and nanoparticles to create new materials with new properties. Leo Bakerland would have approved.
SPEAKER_03: A key reference for this programme was American Plastic, a cultural history by Jeffrey L. Meikle. For a full list of our sources, please see bbcworldservice.com slash 50 things.
SPEAKER_01: Just before you go, I'd like to recommend another podcast series from the BBC World Service. Thanks for watching.
