Word: plastics
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...only after marrying Italian- American Victor Hazan in 1955. It was a struggle at first. After working as a biological researcher at New York City's Guggenheim Foundation by day, she would rush home each night to fix dinner. American supermarkets shocked her: "The food was dead, wrapped in plastic coffins." She became a professional cook by accident in 1969, when friends in a Chinese cooking class asked for Italian recipes. (Her fame was sealed by Claiborne, who came to lunch one day and went home raving...
...with many environmental efforts, the greatest obstacle to plastic recycling is old-fashioned laziness and indifference. Many communities have been unwilling to set up the apparatus -- and allot the funds -- needed to collect and transport the waste. Even if encouraged to recycle plastic waste, many citizens find it too much trouble to sort through their garbage, sifting out the plastic peanut-butter jars and toothpaste tubes from other debris. Curbside collection -- forcing citizens to separate recyclable garbage -- is what some communities demand. Three states, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Florida, require residents to sort their garbage for collection...
...that, purifying plastic is no easy trick. Six months ago, for example, Continental Can began making detergent bottles from recycled milk containers. All went well until workers began noticing a faint aroma of milk in the final product. After a few months of tinkering, they finally managed to remove the odor. But that sort of problem is par for the course in the new recycling game...
Some firms argue that degradable, not recycled, plastics are a better solution to the waste problem. Archer Daniels Midland claims to have invented a kind of cornstarch additive that makes plastics totally disintegrate when exposed to soil, water or sunlight; currently, no more than 0.5% of all U.S. plastic products are degradable. But for the process to work, a certain amount of moisture must be present in the soil, and critics argue that landfills are not always moist enough for the plastic to break down. Even some trash that deteriorates can take years to do so. Says Jeanne Wirka...
Everyone can agree, though, that a serious solution to the problem of plastic waste is going to be expensive. Companies are spending about $20 million a year in researching and advertising plastic recycling, an investment that will surely increase in the next few years. It will be a price well worth paying if it prevents America's refuse problem from getting worse...