TRASHED Our American Legacy

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TRASHED!Our American Legacy

• The Past, Present and Future of Plastic Garbage
• Presented by Courtney Sloger of Sustainable St.
  Louis

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The History of Garbage
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Whats in a word?

• Garbage is Anglo-Franco word meaning, "giblets of
  a fowl, waste parts of an animal
• Trash is a twentieth-century invention
• - Scandinavian origin meaning "fallen leaves and
  twigs. The sense of domestic refuse dates to
  1906 American English

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The History of Garbage
Ash, yard and food wastes, fabric shreds, other
biodegradables
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The History of Garbage
Ash, yard and food wastes, fabric shreds, other
biodegradables
Reusable waste receptacles
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The Great Depression
Trash can?? What trash can???
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World War II
C is for canning, thats good enough for me
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Post WWII Boom Years
Whos really, really, really hungry???
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The Age of Plastic

• Polystyrene and PVC (post-WWI) Germany
• Polyamide (Nylon) (1927) Dupont
• Polyethylene (1933) - cheap packing materials
  that would be chemical resistant
• Polyethylene terephthalate (1941) invented in
  England in a printing company as a synthetic
  fiber
• Polypropylene (early 1950s) Similar to
  polyethylene, but more robust

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The Age of Plastic

• 1 Polyethylene
• 2 High-Density Polyethylene
• 3 PVC
• 4 Low-Density Polyethylene
• 5 Polypropylene
• 6 Polystyrene
• 7 Other polyamide, polypropropylene

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Artist Chris Jordan
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Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles,
the number used in the US every five minutes
(Plastic Bottles, 2007)
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Depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in
the US every five seconds (Plastic Bags, 2007).
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One million plastic cups the number of plastic
cups used by airlines on U.S. flights every six
minutes (Plastic Cups, 2007).
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What are we producing?

• Since the 1950s, one BILLION tons of plastic have
  been discarded
• 500 billion to 5 trillion plastic bags are
  produced annually
• 1995 1.95 billion pounds of PET bottles 40
  U.S. recycling rate
• 2005 5 billion pounds of PET bottles 23
  recycling rate
• Sales of bottled water have overtaken milk and
  are close to outselling beer

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Why arent we recycling more?

• 80 of American households have access to plastic
  recycling centers
• One out of every four take plastic bottles to bin
• 72 of Americans dont know that plastic is made
  of oil (10 of U.S. oil consumption
• 40 of Americans think that plastics biodegrade
  underground
• System for recycling is not consumer-friendly

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Where is it all going?
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The Great Pacific Trash Island
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What can you do?

• Actively recycle according to rules provided
• by waste haulers.
• Reuse containers when possible, switch to
  longer-lasting reuseables.
• Consume less plastic.
• Consume less.