A burping bowl in every cupboard: Tupperware and the lessons of American energy decadence

Energy exchanges have helped to define each phase of human life. Some are overt and noticeable; however, modern life is also layered with concealed exchanges that allow us to overlook our reliance on fossil fuels. In both their origin and consumption, objects such as Tupperware represent the ethic that define the era known as the Anthropocene. Environmental historians must play a vital role in recording this era by deconstructing items such as plastics to reveal the culture that has created, required, and consumed them. Properly telling the story of this human era can begin with a mundane object such as the Tupperware burping bowl.