Plastic is a beautiful thing. We know this because we have surrounded ourselves with it. Look around you. It appears in every corner of our world. It is handles and wheels, boxes and bread bags; trinket, talisman, tape. It is the warp and weft of petromodernity. Plastic is magical, absorbing shapes in miraculous ways. Morphing into gigantic cylindrical tanks and delicate tools, it also bulges to become an inflatable pool on the hottest day—one that is now becoming hotter still. Plastic holds air like a lung. Except better. Longer. A balloon for your party. A colored orb that flies. Plastic secures. And its transmogrificational capabilities seem to know no limit. It is an infinitely mutable, changeable thing, sucking up color and inspiration. The human mind thrives in plasticity. It has the ability to adapt and mutate and become differently, to trans-figure. And what entity is more transfigural than plastic? A wonder born from the earth. A wonder born from chemicals. A wonder of fabulation and form. An invitation to invention. A handsome material to craft a more beautiful world. Full of fresh possibilities. A palette of color. The persuasive shapeshifter. We are the plastic fantastic lovers.

Plastic is a terrifying thing. We know this because we have surrounded ourselves with it. Look around you. It now resides in the deepest recesses of the ocean. Little bits of it littering the lowest canyon on earth. It is touching us always. Often. Woven into our lives at every stitch. Piercing the organic world with dexterity, duration, and ubiquity. At every turn it appears. You might be able to avoid it, but it would be difficult. Try to go a day without contacting plastic. Without having it somewhere in your service, in your head. Hello, toothbrush. Leavened from oil through the cruel magic of petrochemical engineering, it appeared on the horizon so innocently. As Bakelite. The first synthetic plastic. Born twenty years before the great crash. Such a pretty name, like a fluffy pink cupcake you might give to a child. Polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride: this name is not so pretty. The one that is made into pipes and insulators and guns.