When my parents got married, they were given a supremely expensive, impossibly modern, extremely rare wedding present that none of their friends had even seen before: a set of plastic mixing bowls. They were white on the inside and jolly primary colours on the outside, with each bowl a different colour. Somewhere, we still have the yellow and green ones, though they’re discoloured and scratched, and mostly used for gardening.
Friends went wild over them. They were light enough to cradle in the arm while whipping things that need whipping, even light enough to pack in a suitcase and take on vacation. They were also unbreakable - something that made them well-loved, because in those days objects were not considered disposable, and buying a new bowl for the kitchen was a fairly large purchase.
Plastics surged in popularity throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s. By the time I was born in the 80s, nobody raised an eyebrow at plastic everywhere, and by the time I bought my own kitchen equipment in the early 00s, plastic was seen as cheap and nasty and my tastes ran towards old-fashioned ceramic bowls from Mason Cash and Cornishware. I haven’t updated my baking supplies in 15 years, and still use these.
As of the 10s, people are realising the problem that disposable plastic is causing the world, and actively trying to do away with it, especially in packaging. In just 70 years, plastics have gone from being expensive, modern and highly prized, to being mundane and not worthy of notice, to being hated.
I still kinda like Mom’s mixing bowls, though.
Source: Quora
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