Understanding the Use of Plastics in Design: Materials, Manufacturing Processes, and Relational Connections

The use and misuse of plastics in design have been the bedrock of turbulent relationships between consumers, manufacturers, and the material family. It has been acknowledged that culturally we, in the West, have had a deep, long-lived, yet ambivalent relationship with plastics as the materials have been seen as both a bringer of utopian ideals as well as a cheap alternative to nobler natural materials. Today, those relational connections have become diametric with individuals loving plastics because of what they can be made into, and those who hate them for the very same reason. This chapter will explore the historical comprehension of designed objects made of plastics, based on the notions of identity and authenticity, the acceptance of new materials, the ideas of cultural perception and taste, and the general understanding, or lack thereof, of manufacturing processes.