Life before plastic

[ifigoup]

What did people use before plastics were everywhere? I don’t mean hundreds of years ago when most people lived in filth and had a miserable quality of life; I mean from, say, the late 19th century, when lots of aspects of society then are still pretty recognizable today.

I feel as though if I knew more about what people used before plastics, I’d be encouraged to try some of them and thereby reduce my own plastic use. In the scheme of things it really isn’t very long that plastic’s been ubiquitous, but we seem to have totally naturalized it, and we all know we can’t carry on the way we are.

I know part of the answer is that there are just so many more products now that wouldn’t even have existed in the past and that in all honesty we could probably do without entirely. But what did people use instead of plastic stuff in the following kinds of situations?

Washing up bowls (big ceramic bowls like old-fashioned mixing bowls? Just directly in the kitchen sink?)

Cups and plates for babies/toddlers who are still in the “throw everything on the floor” phase (metal mugs and dishes like you might use for camping? Just accept normal glass and ceramic stuff would get broken?)

Containers for products like facial cleanser and moisturiser (I know we have lots more products now, but in the early/mid 20th century people definitely already used stuff like “cold cream”: what was it contained in? Glass jars?)

Bringing home raw meat, fish etc. (People had their own shopping bags and baskets but what was raw meat etc. actually wrapped up in? Just paper?)

Shampoo, washing up liquid etc. (Did people just use solid soap for everything like this?)

The biggest difference was the assumption that the housewife would spend all day on household chores. Which is no longer viable.

A few years ago I went to talk about basket making in the Fens. It was fascinating. Women used to weave baskets out of reeds and then use them for everything when they went to market. Some were tiny and so tightly woven that they could safely carry salt, sugar etc without the contents leaking through.

When I was little (early 70s) I remember the butcher wrapping meat up in white paper. And people used string bags

Ruth2009 North East here too so it could absolutely be a regional thing

So much more stuff was expensive, so made to last as well as looked after so it did. My dad had a fountain pen and a couple rollerballs, I had a set of felt tips and colored pencils, but all lasted for years. Nowadays you can get a set of pens for a quid but they will dry up in a few months even with the lids on, and the pencils are made of rubbish wood and don't sharpen. Hard to make the kids respect them!

Lots more cloth and metal - my dad has his hole punch from the 60s with a metal box for the clippings. The energy used to smelt that metal would have come from fossil fuels and probably more than that used in the modern plastic version - hence why companies use it. Lots of greaseproof paper etc just got chucked in the fire, contributing to particulates in the air.

Liquid soap only really got popular in the 90s along with trying to make people revolted at sharing bar soap.

"I'm not sure there was such a thing as cleanser earlier in the 20th century" there was.

I discovered a book at my grans once which had been her grans which was given to her by her mother on her wedding day. Basically "how to be a good mother and wife" was a real eye opener!

It covered cleansing routines, hair styling (including how to create solutions to "fix" hair - no hairspray then let alone mousse or gel), depilation (including pubic area "for some husbands preference), what we'd now refer to as make up (but they wouldn't as only harlots wore make up)...

Re washing up liquid before it was liquid - these came as soap flakes in a box one of my grans kept using until completely discontinued.

I'm only 46 and I still remember milk, fresh juice and squash being mostly in glass bottles. I certainly remember "deli" items being wrapped in grease proof paper my mum still unwraps these from the plastic at home and rewraps in paper before refrigerating, she swears the plastic makes them "sweat" and go off quicker otherwise I'm not sure she's wrong.

"There, in that one sentence, you show the different mentality.

Back then physical goods were expensive so people looked after them. They treasured what they had. They repaired, re-used, re-purposed. They didn't have the throw-away mentality.
It's why oldies are such hoarders" this!

Drives me nuts how easily dd will decide to just bin something! Over the years it's led to me teaching her how to repair things or repurpose them.

But then I've known people my age just as bad who it wouldn't occur to them to check the fuse before throwing away a "broken" lamp! Hell I've known people do things like throw away a lamp cos it needs a new shade! So wasteful.

"Cables were fabric covered I'm guessing. Not sure about plugs, ceramic maybe. It's quite depressing how surrounded in plastic tat we are. I can't imagine it being banned as we've become so reliant."

Remember not a lot of electricity or electrical items were used, electricity itself was expensive and the electrical items very expensive. When my mum & her parents moved to a tenement scheme in the 60's it was the first home any of them had that had electricity at all! My grandparents were very wary of the cost (I remember them being like this even in 70's and 80's when we visited) and preferred to use gas or even things like candles rather than "waste" electricity.

I was fascinated by how my grans shopped as neither liked supermarkets, there were rows of shops near where they lived with independent butcher, fishmonger, baked, green grocer, confectioner and I've no idea what it would be called but a shop that sold flour, oats, seeds, lentils, pulses etc loose in barrels that customers scooped into either a container they bought or their own containers (and this was weighed before and after the product went in) and they were charged by weight etc and that's who they used.

The shopkeepers/owners knew them by name and encouraged loyalty by "looking after" regular customers with little extras. The butchers and fishmongers had sawdust on the floor and items that were particular to their shop eg the fish cakes in my dads mums shop were more herby/flavoured than elsewhere.

"and plugs were made of the old bakalite material" Bakelite is plastic.

The earliest plugs were I believe made from iron.

"I think the increase in women working out of the house has meant that shopping little and often is not so practical any more" the idea that women didn't work outside the home until post WWII is a myth. Certainly working class women always worked outside the home as much as possible, no welfare state and the men didn't earn loads and big families like my parents to feed (mum's one of 6 dads one of 5 and for their generation that wasn't considered a big family, my grandparents siblings all except those who couldn't had bigger families, one had 13 kids all still alive)

I think we need to be careful not to romanticise too much though.

"to do everything the VIctorian housewife did with a bar of soap." There were huge issues with personal hygiene in the Victorian era and beyond, I hear the tales from my parents of how they and their siblings all used the same tub of water to wash in on a Sunday night but they fail to connect this with the fact they got every bug going and are now 60+ years later still suffering the effects of that. It wasn't all good and today's practices aren't all bad.

we need to find a balance.

One of the big reasons companies started to use plastic in packaging was to save money. Pre-packaged food in vacuum-sealed plastic lasts longer and shops don't have to employ people to slice or portion it. Plastic is lighter than tin or glass so transportation costs are lower so items can be made and packaged in countries with lower wage bills and transported cheaply.

I was a child in the 70s. My mum used to take a wicker basket to the local shops and have her fruit and veg put straight in with no packaging. She cleaned using soap flakes, bars of household soap, cardboard cylinders of abrasive powders like Vim, Brillo pads and J Cloths.

A couple of the face/make up cleansers were Ann French Cleansing Milk which was in a glass bottle and Ponds Cold Cream which was in a glass jar.

I love threads like this. Really interesting. I think it's like Graphista said, there are many things you wouldn't wish back, but there are things we could/should do now that people used to do before plastic - it's a balance.

There must just be so many factors in the increase in plastic though (stating the obvious I know). I was thinking about it today having read a bit of this thread this morning. I bought my DS a new duvet cover and some socks today. The duvet cover was in a plastic pack, and the socks were on a cardboard thingy with a plastic hanger. Whereas in the pre-plastic age (I know duvet covers probably weren't around then), stuff like this would have been sold in a drapers would it? From behind a counter anyway. And would have just been folded up on a shelf with no packing, the socks would have been in those little glass drawers etc (would they?!), no plastic hanger.

But now everything is just hanging up or out on the shelf for you to choose yourself rather than someone paid to get it down from the shelf for you. Same with food. So did those type of jobs change because of plastic or the other way around?? Or is that too simplistic?!

I try to reuse/reduce but it's such a drop in the ocean. Thinking of things like supermarket set ups, how much plastic is chucked away etc... it's depressing.

Oh x-post Anne! It took me so long to type that post I missed yours!

Private you're right, shops used to employ many many more staff and more items were produced in this country and were sold seasonally.

The amount of plastic used "behind the scenes" in shops is huge. Many pallets and cages are shrink-wrapped in plastic during transportation.

I remember that pop man who came round and took the glass bottles, replacing them with full ones. They’d be washed and reused.

We are trying to cut down on plastic a lot buts it’s difficult. I’m doing all of the usual - no bottles of water, buying fruit and veg loose, choosing something in tin or glass rather than plastic, composting, growing my own, shampoo bar and in general not buying as much.

I’ve looked at the refillable shops (there is one in a town 35 miles away) and they are really expensive. It’s just not in my budget to be able to do it all. The butchers and Farm shop is more expensive than Tesco. When you’re on a limited budget there’s only so much you can do as everything that is ‘sustainable and green living’ seems to come at a very premium price.

Then came the beige & orange Tupperware parties.

Mind you the Tupperware is excellent quality and can be used loads of time so is a good investment, better than plastic bags etc.

I will stick up for Tupperware. My mum had a party in the 80s and she gave me a lot of the stuff when I got my first house in 1999. It’s still going strong and I use it all the time. It’s so much better than the cheap Ikea stuff cracks in school bags and I replaced time and time again.

Waxy paper springs to mind.

Tupperware was definately good quality. I remember these as if it were yesterday,

A pp said mushrooms now get put in plastic boxes and covered with shrink wrap. It’s no good for your mushrooms! They sweat and go brown quickly. I rarely see brown paper bags being available for mushrooms in supermarkets. Also, why do supermarkets put grapes in plastic boxes now? What a waste.

I remember Gran returning RWhites lemonade bottles to the shop for the 10ps. She recycled a lot of bottles at the bottle bank too. Grandad grew a lot of his own fruit and veg. This was in the mid-1980s.

Mum didn’t use cleanser when I was young, just soap on a flannel. There was no wipes of any kind. She used cold cream. Olay moisturiser in a big tub lasted her for ages. She didn’t use hair conditioner. When I was tiny, she had very long hair that she used to let dry naturally.

If we had a roast on Sunday the leftovers and bones were turned into soup or stew for Monday.

I’m 41 and use too much plastic. I am addicted to convenience. I am trying to reduce though.

Avon started giving more choices for skin care I think, but not refillable.

Soap flakes in a cardboard box! Takes me back!

My mum used to wash plastic bags (of the more sturdy variety, like freezer bags) and hang them on the line to dry. This works! I do it. They last for ages, no need to chuck them out after one use.
A lot of preserved foods were bought tinned. In the days before freezers canned foods were more of a staple back up - now we tend to reach into the freezer. We had two metal dustbins when I was a kid, rubbish was mostly ash (from fires) tins, paper etc. Waste food and inedible stuff was always wrapped closely in newspaper to keep flies at bay. Black bin liners didn't exist, the bin men used to take the lid off the bin and carry it to the dustbin lorry and tip it in.
Where now plastic is used, in those days it was either glass, paper or cardboard, but there was no recycling, so a lot of glass, other than milk and pop bottles, would have gone to landfill. Jam jars were kept for future jam making or even storage of dried goods.Picnics/portable lunches were carried in greaseproof bags, sandwiches also wrapped in greaseproof within.
My mum probably shopped every other day. We used to visit the butcher, baker etc. No supermarket then.Goods were either tipped loose into her basket or wrapped in paper. If you couldn't get to the shop their lad would deliver via bike - we were lucky to have a phone so you could phone your butcher, say, ask for 2 lamb chops and they would be delivered quite quickly (within an hour or 2) Cash on delivery. Actually, not even Amazon can do that!
This was the mid to late 50s.

I grew up in the 70s... I remember going to Christmas parties at school/brownies etc.. and having to take your own fork and spoon with your name stuck on with sellotape.., so you could take the right set home with you afterwards!

At primary school (1980’s) we had metal water jugs and metal cups. Aluminium I think. It made the water taste tinny!

longearedbat I order ny food shopping online and my dad calls it "the virtual order boy"

Thanks for all the interesting replies, everyone... To the person upthread who implied I have a “throwaway mentality” and that people just took care of stuff better in the past: in the question about whether people just accepted stuff would get broken I was specifically asking about babies, who are not known for their forethought, thrift or skills in careful handling!

So people have made lots of good points about the social shifts that plastic use has facilitated. With the best will in the world, it seems unlikely that the majority of society is going to stop using ready meals, hair conditioner, etc. So is it that we need essentially to be investing more as a society in “plastic-free plastics”? I know there is now a compostable transparent plant-cellulose-based stuff that can be used like cellophane. There must be ways to develop more things along those lines?