Plastic

  For help in explaining what happens to my plastic things once I'm done with them, I'm grateful to the following experts on recycling and waste disposal: Frank Ackerman, Tufts University; Lyle Clark, Stewardship Ontario; Susan Collins and her predecessor Betty McLaughlin at the Container Recycling Institute; Paul Davidson, WRAP; Edward Kosior, Nextek Ltd.; Charlie Lamar and Ed Dunn, Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council Recycling Center; George Larson, solid-waste consultant; Ted Michaels, Energy Recovery Council; Patty Moore, Moore Associates; Clarissa Morawski, CM Consulting; Bruce Parker, National Solid Waste Association; Jerry Powell, editor, Resource Recycling and Plastics Recycling Update; Robert Reed and Leno Bellomo, Recology; Dennis Sabourin, National Association for PET Container Resources; Alan Silverman, Eagle Consulting; Peter Slote, Oakland Solid Waste and Recycling; Kit Strange, Resource Recovery Forum; and Kathy Xuan, Parc Corporation.

  My guides to the brave new world of postpetroleum plastics included Tilman Gerngross, Dartmouth College; Brian Igoe, Metabolix; Brenda Platt, Institute for Local Self-Reliance; and Frederic Scheer, Cereplast.

  I'm also grateful to the sustainability gurus who helped me parse the many meanings of that overused word: John Delfausse, Est'e Lauder; Ann Johnson of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition; Robert Lilienfeld, coauthor of Use Less Stuff: Environmentalism for Who We Really Are; Andrew Wilson, author of Green to Gold; Cathy Crumbley and Ken Geiser, of the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, and huge thanks to the team of experts from the center, the Toxics Use Reduction Institute, and the members of UMass Lowell's polymer engineering department, who gathered together for a day to let me pick their brains: Pam Eliason, Greg Morose, Liz Harriman, and Ramaswamy Nagarajan.

  The following folks were kind enough to read and provide feedback on various parts of this manuscript: Susan Collins; Cathy Crumbley; Peter Fiell; Robert Friedel; Robert Haley; Russ Hauser; Marianna Koval; Naomi Luban; Donald Rosato; Dan Schmidt; Seba Sheavly; Shanna Swan; Brenda Platt; Jerry Powell; Joel Tickner; and Nan Wiener. Any errors that remain are wholly my own.

  Of course, all that expert input would hardly add up to a coherent whole without strong editorial guidance and boatloads of support. I was incredibly lucky to have both, starting with my fabulous agent Michelle Tessler and my extraordinary editor Amanda Cook, who is the kind of engaged, insightful, demanding reader that writers dream of but rarely encounter in publishing these days. Thanks also to ace copyeditor Tracy Roe for rescuing me from multiple embarrassments in style and grammar and to Lisa Glover for shepherding the book through production. My sister, Lisa Freinkel, helped develop the organizational schema of the book and absorbed far more plastic trivia than she ever wanted to know. My brother, Andrew Freinkel; my mother, Ruth Freinkel; and my three children, Eli, Isaac, and Moriah Wolfe all provided vital support. I'm lucky to have a book finder in the family, so am very grateful to my brother-in-law Ezra Tishman for sending obscure polymer texts my way. Also, many thanks to Leslie Landau and Jim Shankland for once again letting me use their beautiful guesthouse for a much-needed writing retreat. I can't imagine even trying the long slog of book writing without my wise and wonderful writing group, North 24th—Allison Bartlett, Leslie Crawford, Frances Dinkelspiel, Sharon Epel, Kathy Ellison, Katherine Nielen, Lisa Okuhn, Julia Flynn Siler, and Jill Storey. Above all: bottomless appreciation for my husband, Eric Wolfe, for his support, patience, enthusiasm, and amazing capacity to find the meaning of it all.

  Notes

  Introduction: Plasticville

  page

  1 [>]a place it called Plasticville: Jeffrey Meikle, American Plastic: A Cultural History (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997), 189. The following website contains information on the toys: http://www.tandem-associates.com/plasticville/plasticville.htm.

  4 [>]a "petting zoo": George Beylerian, quoted in John Leland, "The Guru of Goo (and Gels, Mesh, and Resin)," New York Times, March 14, 2002.

  5 [>]"Nylon ... the Gay Deceiver": House Beautiful 89 (October 1947): 161.

  [>]You might as well claim: Robert Kanigel, Faux Real: Genuine Leather and Two Hundred Years of Inspired Fakes (Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2007), 87.

  [>]Chains crowded close: Herman F. Mark, Giant Molecules (New York: Time-Life Books, 1966), 64.

  6 [>]"a fourth kingdom": Quoted in Meikle, American Plastic, 114.

  [>]You could also peg the dawn: J. Harry DuBois, Plastics History, U.S.A. (Boston: Cahners Books, 1972), 197.

  [>]Styrofoam: The word is trademarked by Dow Chemical to refer to a plastic technically called expanded polystyrene. But I use it here to refer to any product made of that foamed polystyrene.

  [>]"virtually nothing was made from plastic": Quoted in Meikle, American Plastic, 180.

  7 [>]Oil refineries run 24–7: Barry Commoner, foreword to Kenneth Geiser, Materials Matter: Toward a Sustainable Materials Policy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), x-xi.

  [>]"By its own internal logic": Barry Commoner, The Poverty of Power: Energy and the Economic Crisis (New York: Random House, 1976), quoted in Meikle, American Plastic, 265.

  [>]amount of plastic the world consumes: "FYI: Global Plastics Resin Production Over the Years," Plastics News, October 30, 2009. In 2008, total production was 540 billion pounds, down from 573 billion the previous year—a reflection of the recession.

  [>]In 1960, the average American: Dominick Rosato et al., Markets for Plastics (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1969), 3.

  [>]Today we're each consuming: The per capita figure is based on a U.S. population of three hundred million and annual plastics production of a hundred billion pounds, which is a little less than the amount produced in 2008 and slightly higher than the postrecession production in 2009. In 2009, sales were $327 billion, a significant drop from the $374 billion in 2007, reflecting the recession. Society for the Plastics Industry, "Fast Facts on Plastics and the Economy." Also, Robert Grace, "SPI Reports on US Plastics Market Recovery," Plastics News, October 28, 2010.

  8 [>]Considering that lightning-quick ascension: Author interview with Frederic Scheer, president of Cereplast, Inc., May 2010.

  [>]It's "wonderful how du Pont": Meikle, American Plastic, 135.

  [>]A few years later, people told pollsters: Geoffrey Nunberg, Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Confrontational Times (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), 4–5; author e-mail correspondence with Nunberg, March 2010.

  [>]a new era of material freedom: Robert Friedel, Pioneer Plastic: The Making and Selling of Celluloid (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), 28.

  [>]a "universal state": Edwin Slosson, Creative Chemistry (New York: Century, 1919), 132–35, quoted in Meikle, American Plastic, 70.

  [>]"I just want to say one word": The endurance of that line has been a source of dismay to the plastics industry, whose main trade journal "could not bring itself to refer to that 'tired old joke about plastics' until 1986." Meikle, American Plastic, 3.

  9 [>]"a malign force": Quoted in Stephen Fenichell, Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century (New York: Harper Collins, 1996), 306.

  [>]Humans could disappear: The point was elegantly explored by Alan Weisman in his book The World Without Us (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2007).

  10 [>]As historian Robert Friedel notes: Robert Friedel, "Some Matters of Substance," in History from Things: Essays on Material Culture, Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery, eds. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), 49–50.

  [>]plastic in the first decade: Richard C. Thompson et al., "Plastics, the Environment, and Human Health: Current Consensus and Future Trends," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 364 (July 2009): 2166. The entire issue of the journal was devoted to plastics and the health and environmental problems associated with them. It's an excellent overview of current scientific understanding and concerns.

  1. Improving on Nature

  13 [>]"the necessities and luxuries of civilized life": Edward Chauncey Worden, Nitrocellulose Industry, vol. 2 (New York: D.
Van Nostrand, 1911), 567, quoted in Meikle, American Plastic, 15.

  14 [>]"Have you ever seen a polypropylene molecule?": Author interview with Bill Adams, owner of Adams Manufacturing Corporation, March 2008.

  15 [>]at least one million pounds of ivory: "The Supply of Ivory," New York Times, July 7, 1867. Historian Robert Friedel argued that fears of the shortage were overblown— the only truly scarce commodity was the particular type of ivory required for billiard balls, which was taken from the center of select tusks.

  [>]In 1863, so the story goes: The story of Hyatt and celluloid's early days is told in Fenichell, Plastic, 38–45, and Meikle, American Plastic, 10–30. Some, especially in Britain, consider the true father of plastics to be Alexander Parkes, an English inventor who was the first to combine cellulose, nitric acid, and solvents to create the syrupy semisynthetic substance collodion that was the basis for Hyatt's experiments. Parkes had also noted the potential value of using camphor as a solvent for the material but didn't add it under heat and pressure as Hyatt did. His invention, Parkesine, was not quite as versatile or workable a material as celluloid, and he did not have Hyatt's marketing skills.

  16 [>]The Victorian era: Friedel, Pioneer Plastic, 28.

  [>]The noun plastic: The U.S. Patent Office didn't create a distinct category for plastics until 1903, and then it included oddities like compressed scraps of cork and leather, reflecting ongoing confusion over just what constituted plastic, according to Meikle, American Plastic, 5. According to Robert Malloy, chairman of the plastics engineering department at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, the noun plastic first appeared in a dictionary in 1911. Author interview with Malloy, May 2010.

  [>]It shrugged off water:Robert Friedel, A Material World: An Exhibition at the National Museum of American History (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1988),41.

  17 [>]One Colorado saloonkeeper:Fenichell, Plastic, 41.

  [>]celluloid transcended the deficiencies: From Hyatt 1878 patent, quoted in Meikle, American Plastic, 16.

  [>]"Obviously none of the other materials": Hyatt patent, quoted in Keith Lauer and Julie Robinson, Celluloid: Collector's Reference and Value Guide Paducah, KY: Collector Books, 1999), 102.

  [>]Celluloid could be rendered with the rich creamy hues: Though the product was popular with manufacturers, producing it wasn't an easy process. The material had to be made in a range of shades of white and yellow-white, then pressed into multiple laminations, and then sliced across the laminate grain in order to produce sheets that looked like ivory. Robert Friedel, e-mail correspondence with author, May 2010.

  [>]Celluloid made it possible:Meikle, American Plastic, 15.

  [>]"As petroleum came to the relief of the whale": Quoted in ibid., 12.

  18 [>]Della, the young wife: O. Henry, "The Gift of the Magi," in The Best Short Stories of O. Henry (New York: Modern Library, 1994), 1–7.

  [>]"few dollars invested in Celluloid": Quoted in Meikle, American Plastic, 15.

  19 [>]Art critic John Ruskin described the thrill: Quoted in ibid., 13.

  [>]The company urged its salesmen to emphasize: Friedel, Pioneer Plastic, 85–86. Celluloid dresser sets also filled a growing demand for more sanitary personal items, Friedel noted. Unlike silver, celluloid brushes and combs wouldn't tarnish, could be cleaned with soap and water, and were unaffected by moisture. And if made to look like ivory, they were white—the color of hygiene.

  [>]"with graining so delicate and true": "Ivory Py-ra-lin Toilet Ware de Luxe" (New York: The Arlington Co., 1917), quoted in Meikle, American Plastic, 18.

  [>]contemporary hairstyles often demanded: DuBois, Plastics History, 47.

  [>]Where once people had grown and prepared: Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 6.

  20 [>]Celluloid was the first: Meikle, American Plastic, 14.

  [>]Celluloid toothbrushes replaced: Susan Mossman, ed., Early Plastics: Perspectives, 1850–1950 London: Leicester University Press), 118.

  [>]billiards became an everyman's game: Author interview with Julie Robinson Robard, coauthor of Celluloid: Collector's Reference and Value Guide,in April 2010.

  21 [>]In 1914, Irene Castle: Glenn D. Kittler, More Than Meets the Eye: The Foster Grant Story (New York: Coronet Books, 1972), 1–2.

  22 [>]A single machine equipped: Meikle,American Plastic, 29.

  [>]DuPont ... released photos: Ibid.

  [>]With the rise of mass-production plastics: Jen Cruse, The Comb: Its History and Development London: Robert Hale, 2007). She writes: "The advent of injection-moulding machines, combined with the changing fashions in the early 1930s, killed off the idea of combs as decorative objects and the arts and skills of comb-making largely died out in Western countries" (page 54).

  [>]Combs were now stripped down: While celluloid eliminated the need for tortoiseshell to make combs, the tradition of making combs that look like tortoiseshell persists. Indeed, today tortoiseshell is just a part of the plastic palette; like the bright primary colors of Legos, tortoiseshell is a virtual guarantee that an object is plastic.

  [>]it took fifteen thousand beetles: Fenichell, Plastic, 87.

  23 [>]it had a powerful identity of its own: Friedel, e-mail correspondence with author, May 2010.

  [>]"stripped down as a Hemingway sentence": Fenichell, Plastic, 97.

  [>]"From the time that a man brushes his teeth": Time, September 22, 1924, quoted in Fenichell, Plastic, 97–98.

  [>]a shift in the development of new plastics: Friedel, Pioneer Plastic, 108.

  [>]When the first nylon stockings were introduced: Fenichell, Plastic, 147–49.

  24 [>]thermoplastics quickly eclipsed:Donald Rosato, Marlene Rosato, and Dominick Rosato, Concise Encyclopedia of Plastics (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), 56; American Chemistry Council, "The Resin Review: 2008 Edition." The distinction is not always absolute; some polymers, such as polyethylene, can be formulated as either a thermoplastic or a thermoset. In addition, there are other, much smaller categories of polymers, including epoxies, silicone, and engineering plastics, polymers designed to meet high-performance demands.

  25 [>]"Let us try to imagine": V. E. Yarsley and E. G. Couzens, Plastics Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1941), 154–58.

  [>]Eager to conserve precious rubber: Author interview with Luther Hanson, curator of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum, April 2010.

  [>]Production of plastics leaped during the war: Meikle, American Plastic, 125. The role of Teflon in the atomic bomb comes from John Emsley, Molecules at an Exhibition: The Science of Everyday Life Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 133.

  26 [>]DuPont had a whole division: Mary Madison, "In a Plastic World," New York Times, August 22, 1943.

  [>]first National Plastics Exposition: "Host of New Uses in Plastics Shown," New York Times, April 23, 1946.

  [>]"Nothing can stop plastics": Ibid.

  [>]Plastics production expanded explosively:Meikle, American Plastic, 2. In the two decades following World War II, plastics grew at double-digit rates, faster than any major competing materials. Rosato et al., Markets, 2.

  [>]sell consumers on the virtue: One of the benefits often promoted by the industry was the ease with which plastics could be cleaned: all it took was the swipe of a damp cloth. A former editor of Modern Plastics recalled, "We used to write stories for many years—blah, blah, blah, and you can wipe it clean with a damp cloth—all the stories ended like that." Quoted in Meikle, American Plastic, 173.

  27 [>]Hotels ... began handing out complimentary combs: Cruse, The Comb, 195–96.

  [>]we had an ever-growing ability to synthesize: Meikle, American Plastic, 2.

  [>]"You will have a greater chance to be yourself": Quoted in Thomas Hine, Populuxe (New York: Knopf, 1986), 4.

  2. A Throne for the Common Man

  28 [>]"Plastic as Plastic": The exhibit was also good public relations for the chemical company underwriting its costs, Hooke
r Chemical Company, which was later found responsible for polluting Love Canal. Meikle, American Plastic, 1.

  [>]"the answer to an artist's dream": Hilton Kramer, "'Plastic as Plastic': Divided Loyalties, Paradoxical Ambitions," New York Times, December 1, 1968.

  29 [>]Herman Miller company reportedly spent: Author interview with Peter Fiell, furniture historian, April 2008.

  [>]"chairs are extremely important": Author interview with Paola Antonelli, curator, Department of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art, September 2008.

  [>]The oldest known chair: Florence de Dampierre, Chairs: A History (New York: Abrams Books, 2006), 17.

  30 [>]The Shaker craftsmen: Paul Rocheleau and June Sprigg, Shaker Built: The Form and Function of Shaker Architecture (New York: Monacelli Press, 1994), quoted in Paola Antonelli, "A Chair for the Common Man," unpublished manuscript.

  4 [>]The Thonet Model 14: Alice Rawsthorn, "No. 14: The Chair That Has Seated Millions," International Herald Tribune, November 7, 2008.

  31 [>]"Every truly original idea": George Nelson, Chairs (New York: Whitney Publications, 1953), 9, quoted in Charlotte Fiell and Peter Fiell, 1000 Chairs (Cologne, Ger.: Taschen, 2000), 7.

  [>]The Greek root of the word: Meikle, American Plastic, 71.

  [>]As the French philosopher Roland Barthes: Roland Barthes, Mythologies, translated by Annette Lavers (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), 97.

  [>]The makers of Bakelite:Meikle, American Plastic, 1.

  32 [>]called Plastikoptimismus: Quoted in ibid., 320.

  [>]Bakelite spoke "in the vernacular": Quoted in ibid., 108.

  [>]Karim Rashid: Rashid in e-mail interview with author, March 2008.

  [>]The Museum of Modern Art in 1956: Alison J. Clarke, Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950s America Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999), 36. In a 1947 article, the magazine House Beautiful called it "fine art for 39 cents." Ibid., 42.