Barthes was a plastic fetishist - critical studies

Mythologies – Roland Bathes 1957

One of the myths explored in Barthes Mythologies is the ‘myth’ of plastic. In this section of the book Barthes explores the effect of this relatively new material on people’s perceptions natural materials, and ‘imitation materials’:

“Until now imitation materials have always indicated pretension, they belonged to the world of apperances, not to that of actual use; they aimed at reproducing cheaply the rarest substances… all the luxurious brilliance of the world. Plastic has climbed down, it is a household material.” - (Barthes, Mythologies, 1957, pg 98)

all at once able to become buckets aswell as jewels, plastic allowed itself to be swallowed up in the process of making the final product, where as natural materials cling on to their former qualities. Barthes describes the process of using plastic to make dressing room tidies as “the magical operation par excellence: the transmutation of matter” liking the the machines attendant to a “half-god, half robot” capable of performing this alchemy but appearing braindead, unaware of this miracle.

Barthes seems to celebrate plastics qualities, it’s ability to become almost anything, “plastic is the very idea of it’s infinite transformation”, realizing that this new substance means that objects will be created simply for the pleasure of using them, this new material making imaginable the “invention of forms”.
But at the same time he describes it as a non-object “powerless to achieve the smoothness of nature”:

“a disgraced material, lost between the effusiveness of rubber and the flat hardness of metal; it embodies none of the genuine produce of the mineral world” - (Barthes, Mythologies, 1957, pg 98)

The idea of plastic being a non-object seems to me to be a striking idea. The majority of the world seems to be made of plastic, we’re living in a world populated with non-objects. These items that have no tactile quality, you barely notice them when you hold them.