At 12:24 AM 30/11/2008 -0600, Robert Clair wrote:
>... i have always wondered why some are still around in decent shape, and
>otheres just go brittle and break apart. i picked up an old friend the
>another night, a french made contrex ... and poof, it just shattered. this
>one was always kept indoors. some others in the light, just split apart.
>i hesitate to look up pvc (or whatever other plastics search term on the
>net) but maybe there's a reason the old folks "back in the day" had metal.
>or was that just as bad in another way ?
I think the main reason drinking bottles were not made from plastic back in the fifties was because of the taste. Back then "cheap plastic" was a common expression and plastic parts were not trusted to last. Even in the 1970s and 80s plastic water bottles were being advertised as having no taste because many plastics still did. The technology has come a long way since then. I even remember having a 1973 Datsun 240Z where the fake "leather" seat cracked and has to be repaired on warranty in the first year. The Japanese had not yet mastered this material.
John Betmanis
Woodstock, Ontario
Canada