TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/052289/05228900.021

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 6KB | 102 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.