Plastic
Seems that things nowadays don't seem to hold up all that well. For instrance, some of the tools the owner left us were made with metal and have wooden handles. Granted, if you keep them out of the rain and the sun, they'll last a good long time - even a few decades. I can tell you, that some of the items we received, are well over fifty years old - and they are still quite useable. Then there are the items that (I just found out) are at least a hundred years old, and yes, this pair of items is also very usable.
Modern America has no want of anything - if someone desires or dreams of something, it can be made. This is partly due to plastic - a petroleum product. Plastic use to be an adjective - meaning the object was moldable. Plastic itself is moldable, both before and after it has been formed. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but to have that attribute, it gives up something else.
Strength and Beauty
Wood has a good deal of strength in it - and beauty, given time and effort. It is moldable to a degree - but only for a time. After that, you'll risk breaking it. Iron, on the other hand, has a great deal of strength to it, unless, when you are molding it into the shape you need - in the forge, you get it too hot - then it crumbles. Blacksmiths can mold and shape and reshape metal several times. Inbetween those times, the metal is... metal, and it is strong. You can leave metal out in the sun and it won't deteriorate, or at least very quickly (but try leaving it out in the rain unpainted). Try that with wood and it will soon bleach (and wood suffers greatly by getting wet and drying...), try it with plastic and the plastic bleaches, and then becomes brittle - so much for being Plastic!
So, there are some trade offs. Plastics can handle getting wet, dried off, and gettting wet again without rotting. Metals and woods have to have some sort of protective covering - or the water will destroy them. Plastics do much more poorer than wood in the sun and metals don't seem to be effected (generally).
In the final analysis (ugh! my work seeping out...) metal and wood last longer and look better, but that's not all. There is something about holding a tool with a wooden handle, or a wooden chess piece. Even glass feels better than plastic. While a glass glass will likely shatter should it fall from your table onto the floor, and a plastic glass(???) usually won't - the glass glass is heavier, less resilient, more expensive, in dwindling numbers in your cabinet, but it sure feels better in your hand (and doesn't add its flavor to your water!).
So, plastic may have its uses, but I have come to prefer the natural things.
Po~
Modern America has no want of anything - if someone desires or dreams of something, it can be made. This is partly due to plastic - a petroleum product. Plastic use to be an adjective - meaning the object was moldable. Plastic itself is moldable, both before and after it has been formed. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but to have that attribute, it gives up something else.
Strength and Beauty
Wood has a good deal of strength in it - and beauty, given time and effort. It is moldable to a degree - but only for a time. After that, you'll risk breaking it. Iron, on the other hand, has a great deal of strength to it, unless, when you are molding it into the shape you need - in the forge, you get it too hot - then it crumbles. Blacksmiths can mold and shape and reshape metal several times. Inbetween those times, the metal is... metal, and it is strong. You can leave metal out in the sun and it won't deteriorate, or at least very quickly (but try leaving it out in the rain unpainted). Try that with wood and it will soon bleach (and wood suffers greatly by getting wet and drying...), try it with plastic and the plastic bleaches, and then becomes brittle - so much for being Plastic!
So, there are some trade offs. Plastics can handle getting wet, dried off, and gettting wet again without rotting. Metals and woods have to have some sort of protective covering - or the water will destroy them. Plastics do much more poorer than wood in the sun and metals don't seem to be effected (generally).
In the final analysis (ugh! my work seeping out...) metal and wood last longer and look better, but that's not all. There is something about holding a tool with a wooden handle, or a wooden chess piece. Even glass feels better than plastic. While a glass glass will likely shatter should it fall from your table onto the floor, and a plastic glass(???) usually won't - the glass glass is heavier, less resilient, more expensive, in dwindling numbers in your cabinet, but it sure feels better in your hand (and doesn't add its flavor to your water!).
So, plastic may have its uses, but I have come to prefer the natural things.
Po~
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home