A brief history of plastics

, starting with the 1862 introduction of cellulose-based Parkesine by Alexander Parkes at the 1862 Great International Exhibition in London, and ending in 2009, with the possibilities nanotechnology holds for polymers, and the environmental backlash some materials are experiencing. The Society of the Plastics Industry, goes further back in its history of plastics, citing references to resin-like substances in the Old Testament, and referencing John Wesley Hyatt's research into cellulose nitrate in the 1860s. Of note: the timeline states that in 1925, the journal Plastics is first published. Not sure how they've fared in the interim years, but 1925 also marks the inaugural year for Modern Plastics Worldwide.