TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/052289/05228900.021

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.7 KB | 111 lines

                                                                                BUSINESS, Page 84

Second Life for Styrofoam


A growing number of companies are protecting the environment --
and profits -- by recycling plastics


    "I just want to say one word to you. Just one word . . .
Plastics."  That line from Mike Nichols' 1967 film, The
Graduate, became a classic put-down of the Establishment, but
22 years later plastics are no joke. Mounds of plastic-foam cups
and empty soda bottles clutter roadsides and choke waterways.
Though the U.S. faces a staggering excess of all forms of solid
waste, plastic refuse is especially onerous: all but
invulnerable to deterioration, the debris can last for
centuries. What's more, a mere 1% of all plastic waste is being
recycled, in contrast to 25% of used aluminum.

    To improve that sorry performance, an unlikely coalition of
ecologists and businessmen, nature lovers and profit seekers,
has embarked on a campaign to give plastic foam and other
plastics a second life. About 130 companies, ranging from
blue-chip behemoths such as Du Pont and Dow Chemical to smaller
firms like Wisconsin's Midwest Plastic Materials and Iowa-based
Hammer's Plastic Recycling, are involved in reincarnating used
plastics. Some 20 new firms are entering the business each year,
according to the Council for Solid Waste Solutions, a
Washington-based trade association.

    An outburst of altruism? Not exactly. Companies are
sensibly responding to political pressures, as more and more
communities enact environmental laws mandating recycling
programs. Some 20 states are considering some kind of ban or
restriction on nonrecycled plastics. Minneapolis and St. Paul
have already passed laws that, beginning in 1990, will prohibit
nondegradable and nonrecyclable plastic food containers, and a
similar law will take effect this summer in Suffolk County, New
York. Says John McDonald, director of environmental affairs at
Continental Can, which uses recycled plastic to make detergent
bottles: "We're trying to stay ahead of the issue."

    The cause got a big boost last month with Du Pont's
announcement that it would form a joint venture with Waste
Management to build the country's largest plastic-recycling
operation. The facility, which will open in 1990, will separate
and clean 40 million lbs. of the material a year. But that will
only dent the problem: the U.S. annually produces 1.6 billion
lbs. of plastic soda, milk and water bottles, enough to fill a
line of dump trucks stretching from New York City to Cleveland.

    In other corporate pair-offs, Dow Chemical and Domtar, a
Canadian paper manufacturer, are setting up a recycling
operation that will include several large plants. Next month
Mobil and GENPAK, a food-packaging manufacturer in Glens Falls,
N.Y., will inaugurate the first recycling plant in the U.S. that
will handle fast-food containers and other products made of
polystyrene foam. The firms will transform the plastic into
pea-size pellets that can be used in wall insulation and
industrial packaging.

    Recycling has another appeal to companies that use plastic:
it is relatively cheap. Second-generation plastic costs 40 cents
per lb., about 20 cents less than new, pure plastic. "Recycling
is simply a good business opportunity," says Du Pont spokesman
Paul Wyche.

    As 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.

    On top of 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, a solid-waste expert at
Environmental Action in Washington: "There are newspapers that
have been dug up in landfills that are 30 years old and still
can be read." Another decided drawback to the degradable
material is that it is made from petroleum, a dwindling
resource. Says Wirka: "Degradable plastics are a sham."

    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.