Plastic is a synthetic material made out of petroleum products that can be shaped and molded into an infinite variety of shapes without breaking. Few other products have influenced American culture as much as plastic. In the early twentieth century, plastic proved that it could be used as a substitute for all kinds of natural materials. It soon began to appear in all kinds of products that Americans used. Americans' use of plastic as a cheap imitation of natural substances led some to call American culture a "plastic" or artificial culture, focused on cheap imitations rather than on items of genuine quality. Whether or not that was true, plastics became a part of most Americans' daily lives.

Plastic began as a search for a man-made alternative to natural materials such as marble, ivory, and bone. Those items were used in all kinds of consumer goods in the 1800s...