Plastic

[>]Much of that is composed of: Actually, the bottles have to be shredded before China will accept them, though China is reconsidering that long-standing policy. If it is rescinded, American recyclers worry it could lead to even more PET bottles being exported overseas. Steve Toloken, "China to Accept Whole PET Bottles," Plastics News, December 14, 2009.

  186 [>]The program tracked a shipment: The Sixty Minutes episode "The Electronic Wasteland" originally aired in November 2008.

  [>]Lam was one of the early entrepreneurs: Author interview with Toland Lam, March 2009.

  187 [>]later ship back: Not all recyclers are as fastidious. Another recycling plant I visited mixed different plastics together in its recycling process, and the resulting resin was a lower-quality plastic—fit only for low-end products, like flowerpots and coat hangers. Most of that plant's customers were Chinese manufacturers.

  [>]From a global perspective: Author interview with Edward Kosior, managing director Nextek Pty Ltd., a recycling specialist who has designed closed-loop operations around the world, January 2010.

  188 [>]China's hunger for those used goods: Until recently, all those #3 through #7 plastics were sent straight overseas. With the recession, freight rates skyrocketed, and it became more economical for Recology to find local reprocessors who will take those lower-value plastics.

  [>]In 2009, American recycling programs: National Association for PET Container Resources, "2009 Report on Postconsumer PET Container Recycling Activity."

  [>]China factor is undercutting American recycling:The reliance on China also left recycling programs around the country hugely vulnerable when the world economy went into free fall in the autumn of 2008. The bottom fell out of the commodities market, China stopped buying all used materials, and the whole recycling infrastructure seized up. Prices cratered for various types of scrap materials, and plastics suffered the most. Recycling programs found themselves selling at a loss, turning away hard-to-recycle plastics, leasing warehouse space to store plastics they couldn't move, and, in some drastic cases, actually landfilling plastics. A few municipalities decided to just close their recycling programs altogether. See Philip Sherwell, "Crash in Trash Creates Mountains of Unwanted Recyclables in the U.S.," UK Telegraph, December 13, 2008.

  [>]Recycling rates have been dropping: America's overall recycling rate of 34 percent in 2008 is down from the overall rate of 41 percent in 2000, and down twenty percentage points from the all-time high of 54 percent in 1992, according to Container Recycling Institute, "Wasting and Recycling Trends, 2008," 4. Accessed at http://www.container-recycling.org/assets/pdfs/reports/2008-BMDA-conclusions.pdf.

  [>]"We get people to do it": Chase Willett, analyst for Chemical Market Associates, Inc., speaking at Plastics Recycling Conference, Austin, Texas, March 2010.

  189 [>]To try to entice more people: Peter Schworm, "Recycling Efforts Fail to Change Old Habits," Boston Globe, March 14, 2010. The problems of single-stream systems are examined in Clarissa Morawski, "Understanding Economic and Environmental Impacts of Single-Stream Collection Systems," a report done for the Container Recycling Institute, December 2009.

  [>]One recycling expert told me: Author interview with Patty Moore, Moore Consultants, December 2008.

  [>]Closed-loop systems: The upstream environmental benefits of closing the loop is considered to be ten to twenty times greater than those gained by downcycling or disposing of a product. Morawski, "Understanding Economic," 8.

  190 [>]supporter of bottle bills: The first bottle bill was passed in Oregon in 1971. Over the next fifteen years, ten more states followed suit, and then the push for bottle-bill legislation stalled. There were eleven bottle-bill states until 2010, when Delaware repealed its twenty-eight-year-old five-cent deposit. State lawmakers said the measure didn't lead to many bottle returns because most stores refused to take the containers back. So the legislature replaced it with a nonrefundable four-cent fee, which is supposed to provide start-up funds for waste haulers to set up curbside recycling programs. Mike Verespej, "Delaware Replaces Bottle Deposits with Controversial Fee," Plastics News, May 17, 2010.

  [>]Plastic Pollution Texas: The group was started by Mike Garvey, a water-pollution activist in Houston. Author interviews with Mary Wood and Patsy Gillham, March 2010.

  [>]the specifics of deposit laws vary: Author interview with Collins; also "What Is a Bottle Bill," http://www.bottlebill.org/about/whatis.htm.

  191 [>]bottle-bill states have at least twice the recovery: Container Recycling Institute website.

  [>]gets more than 90 percent: Ibid. Beverage container litter has dropped by anywhere from 69 to 84 percent in bottle-bill states.

  192 [>]Aside from Hawaii: Author interview with Collins and her predecessor Betty McLaughlin, October 2007. See also Mooallem, "Unintended Consequences," on the fights over broadening container-deposit laws to include bottled water.

  [>]Howard Rappaport: Author interview with Rappaport.

  193 [>]for every pound of trash: Brenda Platt et al., Stop Trashing the Climate Washington, DC: Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 2008), 19.

  [>]"The recycling movement has missed the forest": Author interview with Bill Sheehan, executive director, Product Policy Institute, February 2010.

  194 [>]In 1970, the average American: EPA, "Municipal Solid Waste," 2008, 9.

  [>]more plastic packaging: The Grassroots Recycling Network report "Wasting and Recycling in the U.S. 2000" indicates that between 1990 and 1997, plastic packaging grew five times faster by weight than plastic recovered for recycling; cited in Jim Motavalli, "Zero Waste," E magazine (March/April 2001).

  [>]"a rite of atonement": John Tierney, "Recycling Is Garbage," New York Times Magazine, June 30, 1996.

  [>]"you make it": Lyle Clarke, vice president policy and programs, Stewardship Ontario, which manages one of the province's EPR programs, speaking at Plastics Recycling Conference, Austin, Texas, March 2010.

  [>]Sheehan maintains this is perfectly logical: The full argument is laid out in Helen Spiegelman and Bill Sheehan, "Unintended Consequences: Municipal Solid Waste Management and the Throwaway Society" (Athens, GA Product Policy Institute, March 2005). See also Melinda Burns, "The Smoldering Trash Revolt," Miller-McCune magazine, January 21, 2010.

  195 [>]the first explicit EPR law: Information on the German system comes from Imhoff, Paper or Plastic, 46–53; Clean Production Action, "Summary of Germany's Packaging Takeback Law," September 2003; accessed at www.cleanproduction.org/library/EPR_dvd/DualesSystemDeutsch_REVISEDoverview.pdf. A good overview of the program is Betty Fishbein, "EPR: What Does It Mean? Where Is It Headed?" Pollution Prevention Review 8 (1998): 43–55; accessed at www.informinc.org/eprppr.phpP2.

  [>]The law has accomplished: "Profits Warning: Why Germany's Green Dot Is Selling Up," Let's Recycle, November 25, 2004, accessed at http://www.letsrecycle.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=38&listcatid=218&listitemid=2056§ion=.

  196 [>]Europe now diverts more than half: PlasticsEurope, "Compelling Facts About Plastic, 2009"; accessed at http://www.plasticseurope.org/Documents/Document/20100225141556-Brochure_UK_FactsFigures_2009_22sept_6_Final-20090930–001-EN-v1.pdf.

  [>]technology known as waste-to-energy: Overall, about 30 percent of the plastic diverted from landfills in Europe is burned for energy. Ibid. See also Elisabeth Rosenthal, "Europe Finds Cleaner Source of Fuel in Trash Incinerators as U.S. Sits Back," New York Times, April 13, 2010. Critics contend that the plants may generate greenhouse gases, produce toxic ash, and encourage increased production of garbage, since they rely on it for their feedstock.

  197 [>]refillable bottles: Author interview with Collins.

  [>]Green Dot law cut packaging: Fishbein, "EPR." A more recent report, prepared for the California Department of Conservation, found that since 2000, the amount of packaging waste produced has leveled out at between 15.1 and 15.5 million metric tons, suggesting the policies have succeeded in severing the connection between economic growth and increasing waste; see R3 Consulting Group and Clarissa
Morawski, "Evaluating End-of-Life Beverage Container Management Systems for California," California Department of Conservation, May 2009.

  [>]More than thirty countries: California Ocean Protection Council, "An Implementation Strategy for the California Ocean Protection Council Resolution to Reduce and Prevent Ocean Litter," November 20, 2008, 11.

  [>]In California, Vermont, Oregon: Product Policy Institute website; California Product Stewardship Council website.

  198 [>]Nature, they pointed out: William McDonough and Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (New York: North Point Press, 2002), 92.

  [>]I attended one of its meetings: Sustainable Packaging Coalition quarterly meeting, San Francisco, April 2008.

  199 [>]Take the example of the juice boxes: Author interview with Ann Johnson, director of Sustainable Packaging Coalition, March 2008.

  [>]Coca-Cola has been concerned: Information on Coca-Cola's various measures comes from author interview with Scott Vitters, director of sustainable packaging, environmental, and water resources, Coca-Cola, March 2010, and author e-mail correspondence with him, August 2010. Also see Coca-Cola, Our Commitment to Environmental Stewardship press release; Marc Gunther, "Coca-Cola's Green Crusader," Fortune, April 28, 2008; Marc Gunther, "Coca-Cola's New PlantBottle Sows Path to Greener Packaging," Greenbiz.com, December 1, 2009.

  200 [>]lightest PET soda bottle on the market: Amy Galland, "Waste and Opportunity: U.S. Beverage Container Scorecard and Report, 2008." The report, written for the watchdog group As You Sow, gave Coca-Cola an overall grade of C on a scorecard that assessed a range of criteria including source reduction, recycling, and the use of recycled content. Tellingly, that was the highest score of any beverage manufacturer.

  [>]Dasani water bottles: Betsy McKay, "Message in the Drink Bottle: Recycle," Wall Street Journal, August 30, 2007.

  [>]I LOHAS: Ariel Schwartz, "Coca-Cola Japan Sells Easy-Crush Water Bottles to Save Plastic, But Is It Greenwashing?" Fast Company, June 9, 2009; accessed at http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ariel-schwartz/sustainability/coca-cola-japan-selling-easy-crush-water-bottles-save-plastic-it-?#.

  201 [>]Vitters said one reason: Author e-mail correspondence with Vitters, August 2010.

  [>]factory will have the capacity: Mike Verespej, "Coke Planning U.S. PET Recycling Plant," Plastics News, August 31, 2007; editorial, "Coke's PET Pledge: Real Progress or PR?" Plastics News, September 24, 2007.

  [>]not to much more than 50 percent: Author interview with Kosior.

  8. The Meaning of Green

  203 [>]One evening in 1951: Caitlin McDevitt, "Plastics Flashback: A Visual History of the Credit Card," Big Money, May 28, 2009; accessed at http://www.thebigmoney.com/slideshow/plastic-flashback#.

  204 [>]"better withstand day-to-day use": Ibid. Around the same time, a Cleveland company began producing plastic charge cards, promoting them with the suggestion that the cards would serve as "billfold billboards" for the businesses that issued them. The idea quickly caught on with the major gas companies as well as with stores and banks; see "Credit Cards in Plastics," Modern Plastics, November 1957.

  [>]"She had a whole purse full": Oxford English Dictionary; author e-mail correspondence with Geoffrey Nunberg, April 2010.

  [>]"A plastic card is a physical device": The phrase appeared on the website of Teraco, one of the leading manufacturers of plastic cards.

  [>]Four out of five Americans: "The Survey of Consumer Payment Choice," Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, January 2010; accessed through www.creditcard.com.

  [>]cards are also increasingly the stand-ins: Tracie Rozhon, "The Weary Holiday Shopper Is Giving Plastic This Season,"New York Times, December 9, 2002.

  [>]ten billion are now created: Cindy Waxer, "Eco-friendly Initiatives Focus on Gift Cards," Creditcards.com; accessed at http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/eco-friendly-green-gift-cards-plastic-1273.php.

  205 [>]Card issuers have played on status consciousness: McDevitt, "Plastics Flashback."

  206 [>]"We are encouraged": Author e-mail correspondence with Mai Lee, media relations, Discover Card Services, April 2010.

  [>]Card manufacturers like PVC: Author interview with John Kiekhaefer, development manager, Perfect Plastic Cards, May 2010.

  [>]there are more than 1.5 billion: Laura Shin, "Making Credit Cards Landfill Friendly," New York Times Green blog, http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/making-credit-cards-landfill-friendly/.

  [>]more than seventy-five million: That's according to estimates by Rodd Gilbert, owner of Earthworks Systems, a Solon, Ohio-based company that collects and recycles used plastic cards. Author interview with Gilbert, April 2010.

  [>]The thought of all those plastic cards: Author interview with Paul Kappus, April 2010.

  207 [>]"That's a load of hooey": Author interview with Tim Greiner, partner, Pure Strategies, April 2010.

  208 [>]Production of biobased polymers: Li Shen et al., "Product Overview." According to this report on the future of bioplastics, the global average annual growth rate was 38 percent between 2003 and 2007 and as high as 48 percent in Europe. Other forecasts project growth rates for bioplastics of 15 to 20 percent for 2011, and anywhere from 12 to 40 percent annually in following years, depending on how quickly new resins and new markets develop. See Mike Verespej, "Despite New Feedstocks, Resins Will Be Resins," Plastics News, August 16, 2010.

  [>]a drop in the resin bucket: Author interview with Ramani Narayan, professor of chemistry, Michigan State University at Lansing, May 2010. Worldwide, 360,000 tons of bioplastics were produced in 2007, accounting for just 0.3 percent of global plastics production. Jon Evans, "Bioplastics Get Growing," Plastics Engineering (February 2010): 16

  [>]bioplastics could one day replace: Li Shen et al., "Product Overview," 2.

  [>]"Our whole industry agrees": Mauro Gregorio, head of alternative feedstocks for Dow, quoted in Joshua Schneyer, "Brazil's 'Organic' Plastics," BusinessWeek, June 24, 2008.

  209 [>]agricultural interests competed: Nonny de la Pena, "Bioplastics Lifts Garbage Out of the Trash Heap," New York Times, June 19, 2007.

  [>]Henry Ford: The story of Ford's interest in soybeans is told in Meikle, American Plastic,155–56, and in Geiser, Materials Matter, 260–61. The Time quote is from Meikle, American Plastic, 156. In the 1946 movie It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey's friend Sam tries to get him to invest in soy plastics. George declines and remains a small-town banker in Bedford Falls while his buddy makes a bundle molding soy-acrylic bubbles for airplanes (ibid., 159).

  210 [>]Oil was inexpensive: de la Pena, "Bioplastics."

  [>]Only a few plant-based polymers: In the 1980s and '90, in response to concerns about plastic piling up in landfills, manufacturers created varieties of pseudo-biopolymers—conventional plastics with plant starches blended in that would theoretically biodegrade. What actually happened was that only the starch components broke down, leaving the petro-based polymers behind. Not only were the materials a nonsolution to the waste issues posed by plastics but the products made of them tended to rip or break, which had the effect of tarnishing the whole field of bioplastics for a while. It was reminiscent of how the reputation of early thermoplastics had been damaged by the shoddy products made in the years following World War II.

  [>]"Carbon is carbon": Kerry Dolan, "Revving Up Nature's Engines," Forbes, July 24, 2006.

  [>]Brazil's petrochemical giant: Frank Esposito, "Biopolymers Building Muscle in Market," Plastics News, March 22, 2010.

  [>]Sustainable Monopoly: Rosalie Morales et al., "The Brazilian Bioplastics Revolution," a paper published on Wharton Business School's Knowledge@Wharton website; accessed at http://www.wharton.universia.net/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1704&language=english Wharton study.

  [>]hub for cane-based plastics: Procter and Gamble already uses cane-based polyethylene in packaging for several of its products, including some Max Factor and CoverGirl cosmetics. Toyota plans to use cane-based PET for the interior of its cars.

/>   [>]soy-based polyurethane cushions: The company is also using seat fabrics made from recycled yarn in the Ford Escape and the Escape Hybrid. And in the 2010 Ford Flex, the storage bins are made from wheat-straw-reinforced plastic. Ford's goal is to eventually make cars in which all the plastic components come from compostable materials. Rhoda Miel, "Natural Fiber Use in Auto Parts Expands," Plastics News, December 4, 2009; Candace Lombardi, "Our Cars Are 85 Percent Recyclable, Ford says," CNET News, April 22, 2010.

  211 [>]"Just because it's biobased": Author interview with Mark Rossi, October 2009.

  212 [>]two different scorecards: Versions of the scorecards can be accessed online through the websites of Clean Production Action, cleanproduction.org, and the Sustainable Biomaterials Collaborative, sustainablebiomaterials.org.

  213 [>]NatureWorks makes a corn-based polymer: PLA was actually first synthesized over a hundred and fifty years ago, but no application for it was found until the 1960s, when it became apparent it could be useful in medicine, since the material dissolved harmlessly inside the body. Not until the late 1980s did various companies, including DuPont, Coors, and Cargill, start exploring how to scale up production to develop it as a commodity plastic; see Li Shen et al., "Product Overview," 57. Background on NatureWorks and PLA comes from author interview with Steve Davies, NatureWorks spokesman, April 2010, and from Elizabeth Royte, "Corn Plastic to the Rescue," Smithsonian, August 2006.

  214 [>]change can be tricky: Suzanne Vranica, "Snack Attack: Chip Eaters Make Noise About a Crunchy Bag," Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2010.

  215 [>]Among its shortcomings: Because there are limits to PLA's versatility, a company called Cereplast is building a healthy business creating hybrids of PLA and conventional petro-plastics that extend the biopolymer's range of attributes.

  [>]biotech company, Metabolix: Background on Metabolix comes from author interviews with spokesman Brian Igoe and company founder Oliver Peoples, July 2009. Also see Mara Der Hovanesian, "I Have Just One Word for You: Bioplastics," BusinessWeek, June 19, 2008.