Word: pilings
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...study comparing the U.S. with other nations, its pile of disposable diapers, melon rinds, grass clippings, plastic hamburger boxes, broken mattresses and discarded tires came to 1,547 lbs. for every man, woman and child in the country. Only Australians came close to producing as much waste: a prodigious 1,498 lbs. per person. The average West German or Japanese threw away about half as much. But even the U.S. figure pales next to that of California, where some calculations have the average citizen throwing away 2,555 lbs. a year. Says Attorney Jill Ratner, who is active in environmental...
Leading a climbing team up Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America, Captain Richard Garrison, an Army chaplain, discovered that even the remote Alaskan wilderness has been despoiled. There, at 8,500 ft., was a pile of garbage -- partly eaten food, foil wrappers from freeze-dried meals, plastic bags and other trash left behind by previous climbers who had disobeyed the basic outdoor rule to backpack out all such junk. "It really detracts from the experience," says Garrison...
...convenience culture helped create this mess; a real solution may require cultural change. For example, more than 20% of U.S. garbage comprises grass clippings and leaves stuffed into plastic bags and left for collection. Householders should simply leave that grass on their lawns or rake - it into a mulch pile, ignoring and thus revising the cultural demand for a golf green-neat lawn. Another cultural change would be required to get Americans to recycle 50% of their trash, as Japanese do. Cultural change is notoriously slow, but it might be speeded up in this instance by the lash of crisis...
Another source of concern is the growing pile of consumer installment debt, which has nearly doubled, from $311 billion in 1981 to $613 billion last year. Normally highly profitable for banks, consumer loans could strain industry balance sheets if a large number of credit-card holders defaulted during a recession...
...timing of the experiment was not accidental. Each summer, as millions of Europeans pile into their cars and zoom to their favorite vacation spots, thousands end up in grisly pile-ups. "Every vacation it happens the same way," says a Paris insurance clerk. "You have types who load their whole family into a small car and try to drive all night, until they fall asleep. You can look at the map and know exactly where they are going to run off the road. It's always the same place...