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Plastics

Plastics

Prerequisites

Requires:

• Global Economics
• Mass Transit

Statistics

Gives:

• Outlet Mall

Gameplay

Plastics made available an entirely new set of materials for consumer goods, industry, and engineering. Shopping Mall,selling those new goods can help a city increase the amount of Commerce it creates.

Historical

"Plastic" materials are simply those that can be formed under heat or pressure. Man’s first plastic materials were, therefore, metals that could be melted and forged. Modern plastics, however, are purely artificial materials with characteristics that can be scientifically manipulated far more precisely than those of metals are. The first artificial plastic was celluloid, patented by Alexander Parkes in 1855 in England. It was made of guncotton and camphor, and mass production started in 1872. The new material was used as a substitute for such natural products as ivory, horn, tortoise-shell, or amber, and was used to manufacture billiard balls, piano keys, men’s collars, buttons, dental plates, combs, and other domestic consumer goods. By the early twentieth century numerous other plastics, including Bakelite and rayon had joined celluloid. By the late twentieth century products made all or in part out of some kind of artificial plastic comprised almost every durable good bought by consumers in western societies.