Material politics plastics

Finally, do plastics drive history I take up this methodological question in the concluding section in order to link my findings to the overall issue of the book the material politics of plastic. 

Hitler s Four-Year Plan memorandum specifically mentioned synthetic rubber, synthetic fuel, synthetic fat and light metals. Yet thermoplastics also had a role in the material politics of National Socialism. It was often heard that, in the case of mobilization, we have to secure also the raw substances and additives, all available in Germany, for plastics like polyvinyl chloride or polystyrol . This remained true even though thermoplastics share of LG. Farben s overall investments in R D and general plant construction declined after 1940 and never competed with two of the most ambitious ersatz programmes of both the state and the LG. Farben corporation, synthetic (air) fuel and synthetic rubber (Birkenfeld 1964 Lorentz and Erker 2003 Plumpe 1990 338 Tooze 2006 449). Exact numbers are hard to come... 

In order to take up these multiple and different ways in which plastics are accumulating across environments and bodies, I mobilize a notion of material politics that attends to how plastics are entangled with and generative of specific forms of more-than-human work. The notion of work is important for this investigation because it allows for an approach to plastics that accounts... 

Takada, H. (2013) International Pellet Watch Studies of the Magnitude and Spatial Variation of Chemical Risks Associated with Environmental Plastics , in J. Gabrys, G. Hawkins and M. Michael (eds) Accumulation The Material Politics of Plastic, London Routledge. 

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Accumulation the material politics of plastic / edited by Jennifer Gabrys, Gay Hawkins, and Mike Michael. 

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