The 20th Century World has been transformed by the discovery and use of plastics. Today plastic materials are used in a wide variety of applications, from building and construction to packaging, from sports equipment to transportation. The vast number of plastics materials discovered over the past 40 years and their wide range of properties make them uniquely suited to a very broad spectrum of applications.

This combination of the successful utilisation of the materials and the number of types of material available has led to the growth of an array of technical terms within the field....