The Revolutionary Invention That Became A Global Curse

In 1863, the world of billiards was in trouble. Ivory, the standard material for billiard balls, was in short supply. To solve the problem, one of the biggest names in the game offered a $10,000 reward — more than $100,000 today — to anyone who could come up with a new, more sustainable way to produce them. Enter John Wesley Hyatt, a pioneer of plastics. His solution was to pump molten synthetic plastic into a mold, and not only did he change the game forever, he also invented injection molding, the process still used to make most plastic items today. It's a fantastic story in the history of plastic. But there's also a dark side to the revolutionary invention.