Word: glassing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...circle of close friends very much like themselves: well educated, well- to-do, well regarded by their professional peers and by one another. They all feel terribly fortunate and sometimes worry about the envy or ill will of the world at large. Glynnis thinks, "Our house is made of glass . . . and our lives are made of glass; and there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves...
There are ways to cope with the waste problem. The French have pioneered a process called vitrification that involves mixing radioactive wastes with molten glass. Over time, the hot mass should cool into a stable, if highly radioactive, solid that can be buried deep underground. The U.S. is also pursuing a strategy of deep burial, but the process has become ensnared in regional politics. Some sites that might have been suitable for an underground storage facility -- the granite mountains of New Hampshire, for example -- were quickly ruled out because of opposition from nearby residents. The one site now being considered...
With a barely audible whoosh, the large doors at the entrance open to a spacious glass-walled hall filled with lush green plants and the soothing sound of a trickling miniature waterfall. But the sleek municipal building in Machida, a bustling city in central Japan, is not a pristine botanical garden. The enticing entrance is merely the facade of a $65 million facility built to handle a dirty job: recycling the wastes of the city's 340,000 residents. "We collect roughly 100,000 tons of garbage a year and convert it back into valuable materials," says a smiling Kenichi...
...country has made "waste not, want not" a national policy. Last year 50% of Japan's wastepaper, 55% of its glass bottles and 66% of its beverage and food cans were recycled. Much of the remaining trash was turned into fertilizers, fuel gases and recycled metals...
Prudent waste management would not be possible without the disciplined cooperation of the Japanese people. Before putting out their garbage, they religiously follow such requirements as separating bottles from cans and burnables like paper from nonburnables such as glass and hard plastic. People who want quick disposal of old refrigerators or TV sets need only make a phone call to the sanitation department for a special pickup. Observes Yumimaru Nakada, a senior official in Tokyo's public sanitation bureau: "Living in a crowded situation, the Japanese have come to learn that garbage recycling is no laughing matter...