Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 1: Dust and Ashesprioritised the service to business and middle class areas and “left the poor, workingclass and immigrants to live with a disproportionate amount of waste” [64].In the 20 th Century, the nature of waste was to change. The mass manufacture ofplastic goods began to expand. Packaging started to displace the practice of measuringout groceries such as sugar, flour and milk at the shop counter. The shops themselveswere reorganised as the forerunners of the modern supermarket replaced the counterwith check-out tills and channelled customers down aisles to select pre-packaged itemsfrom the shelves. These changes took time but, by the 1930s, household bins werefilling with rubbish that does not biodegrade. And they positively bulged with plasticand paper when the packaging and marketing industries took hold after the SecondWorld War. Separation and recycling were entirely abandoned as household goodsflooded the market, things broken could not be repaired or were not worth the effort,chemical fertilisers displaced organic wastes on the fields, and packaging was made forinstant dumping.Box 1: Some milestones in municipal waste generation1868 Celluloid, the first plastic made from a natural polymer, is invented1903 Corrugated paperboard containers are in commercial use1908 Paper cups replace tin cups in vending machines, public buildings & trains1913 Corrugated cardboard becomes popular as packaging1930s Kimberly-Clark markets sanitary pads1935 First beer cans manufactured1939 First paperback books “cheap enough to throw away”1944 Dow Chemical invents Styrofoam1963 Aluminium beverage cans developed1977 Apple develops mass-produced personal computers1977 PET plastic bottles replace glass for cold drinks1985 Swatch markets the disposable wristwatch1986 Fuji introduces the disposable camera1988 An estimated 20 million personal computers have become obsolete2004 Disposable cell phoneSource: Pichtel 2005: 37- 10 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation