Plastic bag. History of invention and production

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HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY, OBJECTS AROUND US
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Plastic bag. History of invention and production

The history of technology, technology, objects around us

Directory / The history of technology, technology, objects around us

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Polyethylene bag - a bag made of polyethylene used for carrying / storing things and materials.

Plastic bag
Packing bags

The conventional packaging bag was first produced in the USA in 1957 and was intended for the packaging of sandwiches, bread, vegetables and fruits. By 1966, about 30% of bakery products produced in this country were packed in such bags. By 1973, the production of bags in Western Europe amounted to 11,5 million pieces. In 1982, plastic bags with a handle (the so-called "T-shirts") appeared on sale in the largest shopping centers. By 2002, the total global production of plastic bags was estimated at 4 to 5 trillion pieces per year.

How many can boast that their invention is sold in trillions of pieces a year? But rarely is an inventor able to calmly watch that same invention, in the amount of the same trillions of pieces a year, is thrown into a landfill, making a long-term contribution to environmental pollution. Plastic bags, with which millions of people return from stores every day, were invented by Swedish engineer Sten Gustav Tyulin.

The problem of home delivery of purchases has existed for a long time. They were carried in hands, in bags, boxes, baskets, and in the 1860s, the American engineer Francis Wolle developed the design of paper bags with a rectangular bottom. In 1870, the American Margaret Knight invented and patented the design of a machine that made it possible to automate the production of such bags, and they took their place at the checkouts of stores for many years.

Another milestone on the path to the plastic bag was the discovery of the German chemist Hans von Pechmann, who in 1898 heated a sample of diazomethane. Von Pechmann did not pay any attention to the waxy residue at the bottom of the test tube, formed as a result of his experiment. It was nothing but polyethylene - in the future one of the main plastics in the world. Polyethylene was only rediscovered in 1933 by ICI chemists Eric Fawcett and Reginald Gibson. They were able to assess the potential of the new material, and after a couple of years, its commercial production was launched.

During World War II, polyethylene was considered a strategic material because it was used to insulate electrical wires. And after the end of the war, it became available to civilian consumers - who, however, until the end of the 1950s, did not imagine its real capabilities very well. But soon everything changed.

On April 27, 1965, Swedish inventor Sten Gustav Thulin received an American patent for the "Plastic bag with handles", which described a method for making bags from an endless plastic sleeve. Polyethylene proved to be the ideal material for this. Tyulin's packs, known to us as "T-shirts", were cheap, strong, and load-bearing. The public, concerned about deforestation to make paper, welcomed the innovation, and in 1977, when the patent expired, the release unfolded on a never-before-seen scale.

This went on for 20 years, and then it was discovered that polyethylene, which hardly decomposes, leads to serious environmental pollution - up to the appearance of giant plastic garbage islands in the ocean. Therefore, since the early 2000s, paper bags have returned to stores. True, not for long: the successes of modern chemistry made it possible to synthesize biodegradable plastics for the production of bags. So the invention of Sten Gustav Tyulin is still relevant.

Author: S.Apresov

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