Plastic
Plastic is a catch-all term for many modern polymers made from petrochemicals, which form a wide variety of textiles and materials. Plastics are generally inexpensive, useful, nonbiodegradable, and almost always unmistakably plastic. As such, they are undesirable for the modern reenactor, but their prevalence in modern life makes them unavoidable.
The earliest plastics were developed in the late 19th century, and their use became widespread by the mid 20th century, becoming associated with the "modern lifestyle". Since the average SCAdian is typically focused on escaping that modern lifestyle, they spend a great deal of time and effort is spent disguising plastic. This is in itself ironic as they spend so much time and effort to bring plastic to events to disguise it.
Some examples include:
- Sewing leather covers over insulated plastic coffee mugs or water bottles so they look more like leather tankards or flasks.
- Painting or embroidering nylon and polyester fabrics to look more medieval.
- Applying self-adhesive shelf paper (in a "wood" pattern) to a plastic cooler so it looks more like a chest.
- Covering plastic sporting equipment with leather so it looks like cuir bolli.
- Painting anything plastic a dull brown so it doesn't look so damned much like plastic.
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