Earl Silas Tupper, a chemical engineer from Berlin, New Hampshire, invented and developed the material that today forms the basis of Tupperware® plastic products. Earl conducted his first experiments with plastic while working as an employee of a chemical plant during World War II.

As research on this material was just beginning, its virtues were unknown and it had a bad reputation for seeming unsuitable for use in everyday activities; but Earl was convinced of its benefits, so he founded Tupper Plastics Company in 1938, at just 31 years old.

To conduct his experiments, he needed plastic, but during the war, it was not possible to purchase it because contracts were awarded only to the largest companies.

So he asked his former bosses at the plant to sell him the surplus material: polyethylene waste, a residue from petroleum refining, black, hard, and almost impossible to work with. However, Earl Tupper managed to purify it and turn it into a moldable, transparent, soft, and flexible plastic.