Plastic in the '40s

Here's an interesting quote I found over on Dr Jennifer Lavers' page. She's the scientist working with plastic pollution and the Flesh-footed Shearwaters (mutton-birds) on Lord Howe Island.

This comes from a book written in 1945 (the timing of which further goes to prove, I believe, how much World War II led/created the burst in the development of plastics).

‘This [imaginary] plastic man will come into a world of colour and bright shining surfaces where childish hands find nothing to break, no sharp edges, or corners to cut or graze, no crevices to harbour dirt or germs... The walls of his nursery, his bath ... all his toys, his cot, the teething ring he bites, the unbreakable bottle he feeds from [all plastic]. As he grows he cleans his teeth and brushes his hair with plastic brushes, clothes himself with in plastic clothes, writes his first lesson with a plastic pen and does his lessons in a book bound with plastic. The windows of his school curtained with plastic cloth entirely grease- and dirt-proof ... and the frames, like those of his house are of moulded plastic, light and easy to open never requiring any paint.’ (Yarsley & Couzens 1945)






How accurate were they? Pretty spot on! But, guess what? When I first read this, I thought it was some sort of dire prediction.. a wise, early doomsaying on just how bad things would get. So I sought the book out on Google, as you do.

No... It's a bright, clean future of shiny, easily wiped-down surfaces and permanence that they foresee. A fibre that doesn't decay.

If only I could reach through time and tell these guys how it was going to end up...