Plastic and Cardboard Usage Over the Years
Plastic began as a bio based product, in the form of Feedstocks, Starch, Oils, Cellulose, Proteins, Lignin or
Xylans. Alexander Parkes first revealed the manmade plastic at the Great International Exhibition in London
in 1862 (Plastics Make it Possible, 2010). The first official plastic packaging by created by Dr. Jacques Edwin
Brandenberger in the early 1900’s, he was a Swiss textiles engineer who introduced a water tight cellophane
product. By 1950 the black or green bin bags has been introduced into the UK, by Canadians Harry Wasylyk
and Larry Hansen, swiftly moving into households after initially being created in particular for hospitals. As
time has gone on, plastic fibres have adapted from just natural fibres to a combination of manmade and natural, now making it harder to recycle. By the time 1965 came around the Swedish engineer Dr Jacques Edwin
Brandenberger had sold his celloplast firm, establishing a new company that created the ‘t-shirt bag.’ The
product was created from type two plastic, an example being polyethylene, the same materials used to create
plastic bottles and plastic lumber; therefore non-bio-degradable (Triplet Pundit, people, planet, profit, 2014.)
Plastic bags have existed for over 50 years, estimating their life span expectancy as 500 years (Sparking Fresh
Thinking, 2008.) Plastic bags do break down, but the question is will the plastic fibres ever completely disappear.
Product Type
Life Span to Biodegrade
Vegetables
5 days - 1 month
Paper
2-5 months
Cotton t-shirt
6 months
Orange peels
6 months
Tree leaves
1 year
Wool socks
1-5 years
Plastic coated paper milk cartons
5 years
Leather shoes
25-40 years
Nylon fabric
30-40 years
Tin cans
50-100 years
Aluminium cans
80-100 years
Glass bottles
Styroform cup
1 million years
500 years to forever
Plastic bags
500 years to forever
Source: Science Learning- Sparking Fresh Thinking (2008)
Cardboard was first developed by Ts’ai Lun, the servant of Emperor Ho Ti of China, in 105 AD. This development quickly spread across the world, with the first English Paper Mill working by 1495 set up in Kent and
ran by the reigning Queen at the time, Elizabeth 1. By 1600 thick paper and cardboard was now being used for
packaging. Packaging became a public consciousness in 1903, when cardboard tubes and cores were created by
E Revell & Sons, later being taken on by Kellogg brothers as a branded and marketing method for their cereal
Cornflakes. Today the cardboard packaging industry is worth £4 billion a year, employing 27,000 employees
per year (Revell, 2015.) Cardboard packaging development has been a success in terms of the fibres being renewable, versatile and therefore easy to recycle. This is a positive aspect to the industry, but are industries and
consumers using cardboard as an easy option to escape their poor commitment to recycling and reducing the
amount of waste they send to a landfill site on a weekly basis?
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