Plastic

50 Things That Made the Modern Economy

BBC

Business

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2017

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A couple of decades after Leo Baekeland invented the first fully synthetic plastic – Bakelite – plastics were pouring 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. These days, plastics are everywhere. We make so much plastic, it takes about eight percent of oil production – half for raw material, half for energy. And despite its image problem, and growing evidence of environmental problems, plastic production is set to double in the next 20 years. Producer: Ben Crighton Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon (Image: Plastic bottle tops, Credit: Taweesak Thiprod/Shutterstock)

Transcript

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0:00.0	50 things that made the modern economy with Tim Harford.
0:17.0	Unless I am very much mistaken, this invention will prove important in the future.
0:24.0	Leo Bakeland wrote those words in his journal on July 11th, 1907.
0:30.0	He was in a good mood and why not? At 43 years old, Leo Bakeland had done welfare himself.
0:37.0	He was born in Belgium. If it had been up to his dad, he'd still have been there mending shoes.
0:43.0	His dad was a cobbler. He'd had no education and he didn't understand why young Leo wanted one.
0:49.0	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 Gent.
0:57.0	By the age of 20, he had a doctorate in chemistry. He married his tutors 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.
1:13.0	He bought a house in Yonkers overlooking the Hudson River and he built a home laboratory to indulge his love of tinkering with chemicals.
1:21.0	In July 1907, he was experimenting with formaldehyde and phenol.
1:27.0	The cheerful journal entries continued. July 18th.
1:31.0	Another hot, sultry day. But I do not mind it and thoroughly appreciate the luxury of being allowed to stay home in short sleeves and without a collar.
1:44.0	Not all rich men were so happy. Leo knew that.
1:48.0	How about these slave millionaires in Wall Street who have to go to their money-making pursuit, notwithstanding the sveltering heat?
1:58.0	All day spent in laboratory. He concluded with an unmistakable note of satisfaction. Perhaps Leo mused about whom he had to thank for this enjoyable carefree life.
2:11.0	The next day's journal entry records the dewyred $100 to his mother. Four days later.
2:18.0	This is the 23rd anniversary of my doctor ship. How these 23 years have gone fast.
2:27.0	Now I am again a student and a student I will remain until this calls me again to rest.
2:36.0	Leo wasn't entirely right about that. When death did call him at the age of 80.
2:42.0	He'd become an eccentric recluse, dining on tinned food. But what a life he lived in the meantime. He made a second fortune.
2:50.0	He became famous enough that Time magazine put his face on the cover.
2:56.0	What Leo Bakeland invented that July was the first fully synthetic plastic. He called it Baker Light.
	...

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