Plastic | 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy

BBC World Service - 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy, Plastic

We make so much plastic these days that it takes about eight percent of oil production. And despite its image problem, plastic production is set to double in the next 20 years. A couple of decades after Leo Baekeland invented the first fully synthetic plastic - Bakelite - plastics were pouring out of labs around the world.