Plasticity and Time: Using the Stress-Strain Curve as a Framework for Investigating the Wicked Problems of Marine Pollution and Climate Change

Plasticity and Time: Using the Stress-Strain Curve as a Framework for Investigating the Wicked Problems of Marine Pollution and Climate Change

Plastics have become the characteristic material of the current Plastic Age. Yet plastics are also a highly contested form of heritage. Intact and functioning, they are useful, but when compromised they lose their utility and often also their heritage significance. At this point, they become at best insignificant and at worst destructive, as a toxic heritage that damages other heritage values. This chapter presents the stress-strain curve as a framework that introduces a temporal perspective on the damage being done. This curve recognises that over time materials pass through a phase of elasticity (in which remediation can bring things back to their ‘original’ form) towards plasticity (whereby things retain an aspect of their original form but are forever changed) and ultimately fracture (where the thing becomes irretrievably broken). The curve works both for the changing form of plastic items but also for the ecosystems and landscapes that are impacted by them, and by the related problem of climate change. We suggest that this archaeological framing and the temporal dimension provide both novel insights and the opportunity for effective solutions to some contemporary ‘wicked problems’.