Plastics and industry

At the end of June, I attended a fascinating conference held at the University of Portsmouth. PlasticsFuture 2023 was convened over three days and brought together speakers from across the world to present their research around, and experiences of, plastics pollution. The team behind the conference...

One of the cases in our current exhibition, Reuse , looks at the problems that black plastics have when it comes to the recycling system and therefore how the material is then reused. When products and packaging made of plastics enter the recycling system, they need to be separated into individual...

One of the cases in our current exhibition, Endurance , looks at what workers in a coldstore need to keep them at a healthy body temperature. Hot and cold working spaces are assessed for risk under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Under this act, organisations and companies are expected to do...

What is K Fair? As one of the premier events in the plastic industry calendar the 2022 K Fair marked the 70th anniversary of the show. Held every 3 years because it is so big, the K fair brings together thousands of plastics industry exhibitors to showcase the latest technology in materials, semi...

MoDiP provided the perfect solution to my ’90 year plastics quandary’! My late father, Graham Shelswell, was born in 1932 and was brought up in Wellington Street, Oldbury, which is only a stone’s throw from the British Industrial Plastics factory site. He lived there with his father and mother...

Spoiler alert!!! I’ve just bought my nephew this for Christmas: Image reference: Airfix model kit of a Supermarine Spitfire Mk.Ia. Image credit: Katherine Pell We love Airfix in our house: my husband has loads of kits relating to his interest in military history. We also love Airfix at MoDiP and I...

These days we are encouraged to buy products made from plastics materials by assurances of the sustainable resources from which they are made. Consumers are increasingly made aware that plastics derived from oil are not always the most environmentally friendly and that there are other options. Bio...

One of the great things to come out of the Covid-19 lockdown is the opportunity to access online conversations which might have been inaccessible to us previously. This could be down to the fact that we are not a member of the group having the conversation, or we might not be able to justify a whole...

MoDiP has recently acquired several examples of Libuše Niklová ’s work, a renowned Czech toy designer (1934 – 1981). Image ref: Libuše Niklová with her Tomcat accordion toy. Image credit: https://maammo.com/blogs/stories/the-future-belongs-to-plastic-the-toys… Although the Czech...

When we think about plastics, it is easy to forget that this material family includes a large and ever-growing number of synthetic fabrics. Developed from the second half of the 19th century, familiar examples include polyester (introduced in 1941) with easy-care properties and Lycra ® (invented in...

You might be wondering what’s so special about a humble disposable expanded polystyrene cup and why it warrants a place in the Museum of Design in Plastics collection. It is an object that most of us have encountered at some point in our lives, but we now might do less frequently as manufacturers...

MoDiP has many toothbrushes in its collections. There are gimmicky ones like the thermochromic example, with a handle that changes colour with heat from the hand, or one that glows-in-the-dark . There are those conceived by well-known designers such as Philippe Starck and Martyn Rowlands . There are...