A History of Plastic Packaging

Plastic is the youngest in compari son with other packaging materials. Although discovered in the 19th century, most plastics were reserved for military and wartime use.

Styrene was first distilled from a balsam tree in 1831. But the early products were brittle and shattered easily. Germany refined the process in 1933 and by the 1950s foam was available worldwide. Insulation and cushioning materials as well as foam boxes, cups and meat trays for the food industry became popular.

Vinyl chloride, discovered in 1835, provided for the further development of rubber chemistry. For packaging, molded deodorant squeeze bottles were introduced in 1947 and in 1958, heat shrinkable films were developed from blending styrene with synthetic rubber. Today some water and vegetable oil containers are made from vinyl chloride.

Another plastic was invented during the American Civil War. Due to a shortage of ivory, a United States manufacturer of billiard balls offered a $ 10,000 reward for an ivory substitute. A New York engineer, John Wesley Hyatt, with his brother Isaiah Smith Hyatt, experimented several years before creating the new material. Patented in 1870, "celluloid" could not be molded, but rather carved and shaped, just like ivory.

Cellulose acetate was first derived from wood pulp in 1900 and developed for photographic uses in 1909. Although DuPont manufactured cellophane in New York in 1924, it wasn't commercially used for packaging until the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the interim, polyethylene film wraps were reserved for the military. In 1933, films protected submarine telephone cables and later were important for World War II radar cables and drug tablet packaging.

Other cellophanes and transparent films have been refined as outer wrappings that maintain their shape when folded. Originally clear, such films can now be made opaque, colored or embossed with patterns.

The Polyethylene Terephthalate (PETE) container only became available during the last two decades with its use for beverages entering the market in 1977. By 1980, foods and other hot-fill products such as jams could also be packaged in PETE.

Current packaging designs are beginning to incorporate recyclable and recycled plastics but the search for reuse functions continues.

Source: A History of Packaging, CDFS-133, Paula Hook and Joe E. Heimlich