There can be no doubt that we have fallen completely out of love with plastics. UK environment secretary Michael Gove’s war on plastics and the EU’s recent announcement that it will make all plastics produced in the bloc recyclable by 2030 have made that official. Emotive images of distressed sea life and of disgusting plastic debris washed up on our shores are beamed daily into our living rooms. Combined with vociferous campaigns in the media about the evils of plastic coffee cups, straws and packaging, they have helped to reinforce our firm belief that plastics are enemy number one where the environment is concerned. And, of course, they are.

And yet it is worth remembering that, although plastics have been going in and out of favour for many years, there have been times when they were the heroes of the age. In the 19th century, plastics brought the excitement of possessing goods within the reach of nearly everyone. Standing in for semi-precious materials — jet, amber, jade and ivory among them — early plastics made it possible for many more people to indulge in luxury goods than would otherwise have been the case. As well as democratising the thrill of wearing glamorous jewellery, playing billiards would not have been the same in the late 19th century as the balls were made of celluloid — despite being highly combustible.

Jump to the early 20th century and the close relationship between plastics, mass production and new technologies was strongly reinforced. Bakelite made electric plugs possible and quickly became the material of choice to clothe new high-tech goods such as radios and gramophones, transforming them from items of furniture into symbols of the modern age. Indeed, a couple of decades later, the French cultural critic Roland Barthes celebrated the magical qualities of plastics, referring to them as the “stuff of alchemy”.