ABSTRACT
Packaging has been with humans for thousands of years in one form or another. Packaging dates back to when people first started moving from place to place. Originally skins, leaves, and bark were used for food transport. Mesolithic humans used baskets and Neolithic humans used metal containers and discovered pottery. Four thousand years ago sealed pottery jars were used to protect against rodents, and in 1550 B.C. glass making was an important industry in Egypt. Tin plating iron became possible in A.D. 1200 and as steel replaced iron, this method became useful after A.D. 1600. In 1825 Oersted first extracted aluminum [1]. The Greek and Roman times saw the rise of pottery and the start of the use of glass. In the 1400s timber chests were first used, and after 1850 paper and glass started to be used substantially as processes were developed for mass production. Napoleon Bonaparte was involved in the invention of canning. More recently plastics were developed, particularly the first commercial plastics in the United States in 1935–42 [1].
