Can you imagine a time when there were no waterproof raincoats? No plastic buckets? Humans existed without plastics for centuries. Now, we rely on them to meet our basic needs. Plastics help keep us safe and healthy. They make our daily lives convenient in so many ways that it’s nearly impossible to imagine a world without them.
Before the 1950’s, we hardly used plastics. How did they go from being rare to being everywhere? Plastics Unwrapped explores how material culture was changed—rapidly and perhaps permanently—by plastics. Learn what life was like before plastics, how they are made, why they’re so convenient and beneficial to use, and what happens after we throw them away.
Plastics were marketed as the “material of the future.” Now, that prediction has come true. They will stay in landfills and oceans for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. In order to counter the impact of plastic waste, we need to rethink our relationship with plastics. Discover how, at Plastics Unwrapped.
Plastics Unwrapped is a traveling exhibit organized by the Burke Museum, University of Washington. The National tour has been generously sponsored by The Boeing Company and the University of Washington. Sponsorship of the local presentation of Plastics Unwrapped was provided by the Park City Museum.
