Out of the engineering materials (metals, ceramics, and polymers), the lecture concerns synthetic polymers that played a decisive role in the creation of technological feats during the twentieth century. We get an overview of the development of plastics, their technical properties, and the conditions of their production. Today, and increasing amount of synthetic polymers are made from crude oil. It is a widely held notion that plastic is a typical material of the forced consumption levels of our globalized world, wasting the Globe's non-renewable raw material, and therefore having no place in sustainable growth. The use of plastic is indeed correlated with the affluence of a country, its GDP, and crude oil consumption. And the ambitions of developing continents are indeed unstoppable. This lecture will provide an answer to the question whether plastics should be made at all in the age after oil; considering the requirements of sustainable development, environmental protection, compatibility with nature, the conversion of bio-mass, and recycling. Finally, we will learn about the possibilities of producing environmentally friendly polymer composites that link natural and synthetic polymers in a new way.

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