Maria Blogs

Think old style black telephones.

Phenolic resins, originally known as Bakelite, was invented by Dr. Leo Baekeland in 1907, effectively the first plastic sold. Though it is not widely used in consumer products these days because of its labor intensive and brittle nature, phenolics is still widely used as an industrial component. These days, Interstate Plastics offer the finest in phenolic sheets and custom shapes.

I got curious about Bakelite, or rather the first plastic resins, in light of Project Kaesei, featured in CNN. Project Kaesei aims to clean up the plastic vortex currently existing in the Pacific – oh just about the size of Texas!

This soupy mess consisting mainly of consumer plastic products, discarded fishing nets, appliances, industrial materials, etc. etc. not only pollutes our oceans but also poses danger to fragile ecosystems by unwittingly becoming transportation hubs for introduction of invasive species into an area where they are not endemic.

Plastics deteriorate at a slow rate and even broken down to bits and pieces, they pose huge dangers when ingested by birds and marine animals. Sure, there’s a plan to clean up the Pacific, but it’s bound to be a never ending problem if countries like the Philippines (oh yeah, you can be sure some of those stinky trash is from our coasts) don’t implement strict measures and successful campaigns for proper trash management.