If today all plastic objects were suddenly removed from circulation, we wouldn’t be able to live a normal life. However, plastic was an unknown material for most of humanity until its mass commercialization in the 1950s. Our grandparents lived in a world with absolutely no objects made of this material—go figure how they managed. Formally, plastics are synthetic polymers, and the first was synthesized in 1907 by the Belgian chemist based in New York, Leo Baekeland. Seeking an insulating material for the then-emerging electrical industry, he invented a thermosetting polymer, which he named Bakelite, and it made him a multimillionaire.
Recently, the most serious and uncertain dangers of plastics have come into the spotlight. To increase the flexibility of these materials, additives called plasticizers are added to the virgin polymer—synthetic organic molecules with a name as sinister as their possible chronic effects: phthalates.
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