Synthetic polymers

A polymer is a molecule made by stringing one small unit — a monomer — into a chain or network thousands of units long. Natural polymers already existed (cellulose, rubber, silk, proteins), and the first commercial plastics, Parkesine in 1862 and celluloid around 1869, were natural cellulose chemically modified. A synthetic polymer is different in kind: the giant molecule is assembled from simple synthetic chemicals, so the material itself never occurred in nature. Bakelite, made from phenol and formaldehyde in 1907, was the first of them.

Bakelite proved that a hard, durable, useful solid could be manufactured from scratch, its properties dialed in by chemistry rather than dug up or grown. It was an electrical insulator that would not melt or burn easily, and it could be molded by the million into telephones, radio cabinets, switches, and handles — the material of the early electrical age. More than any single product, it announced that materials were now a design problem. The 20th century's flood of plastics, synthetic fibers, and synthetic rubber followed from the demonstration that you could build a molecule to specification and cast it into anything.

Cheap, moldable, insulating, corrosion-proof materials in essentially unlimited variety — the plastics that pervade modern life, the synthetic fibers that reclothed the world, and the synthetic rubber that kept it rolling through war and after. Polymers made mass-produced consumer goods, packaging, and lightweight engineering possible, and they are the insulation and casing of nearly every electrical and electronic device. The same success is now the source of the plastic-waste problem, the node's long shadow.