From Plastic Wonderland to Wasteland
Swim the Formaldehyde River or hike the Acrylic Mountains
When Fortune Magazine published this map in 1940, the possibility of a plastic future was largely an industrial fantasy.
During WWII, the US scrambled to find substitutes for strategically important raw materials that they could no longer obtain due to the war.
Science came to the rescue with critical plastics - nylon for parachutes, plexiglass for aircraft windows and synthetic rubber for tires.
And after the war, plastics reached the general public - products like Tupperware - launched by DuPont "Better Things for Better Living... through Chemistry."
Synthetica: New Continent of Plastics: Resembling South America, it’s a continent of fictional lands, mountains, rivers and lakes.
Great chemical river systems, like the Acetylene and Formaldehyde, feed many countries.
Petrolia is the land of the new synthetic rubbers.
Rayon is a plastic island off the Cellulose coast, with a glittering night life.
Vinyl-land, a fast-growing new country of safety-glass and rubbery plastics.
The Crystal Mountains of Acrylic …”
Synthetica was a warning.
Name: Synthetica: New Continent of Plastics
Journal: Fortune Magazine, Volume 22, Number 4
Publisher: Time, Inc.
Date: Oct 1940
Osher Map Library Collection: 56641
I like it! Kids, say hello to Vicki Vinyl and Formaldehyde Fred.
What an absurd flight of fancy. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is only twice the size of Texas, not an entire continent.