Category Archives: Plastica

Blight to Beauty

Plastic shopping bags may be a blight on the landscape, but Jessica Lee, a student at Parsons The New School of Design, has found that these puffs of polyethylene also contain a certain hidden grace. For her thesis project, Lee … Continue reading

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Creative lids

There’s a great piece by Nicola Twilley at Atlantic.com on the rise of the disposable coffee cup lid, and the astonishing variety of ways in which designers have responded to the challenge of capping a portable hot cup of joe. … Continue reading

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God in three easy steps….

Open. Bless. Toss. Who knew you could get salvation on the go: A friend told me about these single-use communion kits. I looked online and discovered several companies offer these portable  communion kits, which, as one company put it, “combine … Continue reading

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Weird plastic fads

Thankfully this one failed. Why, you may ask, are these women wearing plastic beaks? To protect their faces from falling snow!  Luckily, in case of cone-failure we could always fall back on the hat.

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Fun plastic facts

Here, in no particular order, are some interesting factoids about plastic. I’d love to hear any that you know. Bakelite was invented to replace shellac, then in high demand as an electrical insulator. But supplies were running short as it … Continue reading

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Toxic Love Story objects – The comb

The photos here and on the following posts give a sense of some of the objects I used to tell the story of plastic. The comb exemplifies the extraordinary imitative powers of the plastic celluloid. It was used to mimic … Continue reading

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Toxic Love Story objects – The credit card

The credit card: Diner’s Club, started in 1951, introduced the idea of the credit card.  In 1958, American Express gave us the card in plastic.    

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Toxic Love Story objects – The disposable lighter

The Cricket, developed in France in the early 1960s, was the first disposable lighter. It was one of countless objects that helped usher in the era of what Life magazine dubbed “Throwaway Living”. Now lighters are one of the most … Continue reading

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Toxic Love Story objects- The blood bag

The plastic blood bag was developed in the late 1940s by Boston surgeon Carl Walter, who wanted to replace the breakable, cell-damaging  glass and rubber blood bottles then in use:

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Toxic Love Story Objects – The Frisbee

Walter Frederick Morrison brought us new worlds of fun with his “Pluto Platter,” later renamed the Frisbee by Wham-O:

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