Ancient Recyclers
With our growing and rising mounds of trash that our country is producing, the alarms about what to do are rising. However, the idea of recycling is not a new concept. The California Environmental Protection Agency created a very well written document called The Illustrated History of Recycling in 1997. It does a very nice job of giving the history of recycling which I shall share in my unit. When nomadic people began to settle down in 10,000 B.C., there became the issue of what to do with the waste? No longer could they just drop their waste as they traveled. Thus began the challenge of what to do with the trash? In 1,600 B.C., religious, utilitarian, and social conventions played a major role in establishing sanitary practices. As an example, Jewish code of sanitary law obligated individuals to be responsible for removal of their own waste. In 500 B.C., Athens organized the first municipal dump in the western world. The local law dictated that all waste must be disposed of at least one mile from the city walls.
In 1301, Japan is the first country on record for using waste paper for making new paper. All of the documents and paper were recycled and repulped into new paper. It was then sold in paper shops. In addition to the rat fleas, garbage tossed onto the unpaved streets and vacant spaces allowed the Black Death epidemic to kill hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children in 1348. The recycled paper manufacturing process was introduced in 1690. The Rittenhouse Mill near Philadelphia began to make paper from the fiber that came from recycled cotton and linen rags.
During the American Revolution in 1776, all types of material from cloth to metal to paper was recycled and reused to fight the British. In 1801, the first mill that produced paper from material other than cotton and linen rags, was built in London England. In the 1840's, men with backpacks and horsedrawn carriages would travel from town to town in an attempt to collect and recycle anything that had a resale value. These men were usually poor immigrants who had just come to this country. Some of them are the direct descendants to some of today's most successful scrap-recycling business families. In 1849 the U.S. canning business began to take off as the gold rush and the Civil War required food that could be preserved and transported over long distances. In 1849, the U.S. canning business produced 5 million cans. Five years later in 1854, U.S. canners were producing 30 million cans. The Salvation Army was created in 1865 in London, England. They begin by collecting, sorting, and recycling unwanted goods. The Salvation Army comes to the United States in the 1890's and they bring their recycling ideals with them. Curbside recycling begins in Baltimore, Maryland in 1874. That same year, a new device called "the destructor" was invented in Nottingham, England. This device provided the first systematic incineration of municipal waste. In 1895, New York City appoints Colonel George E. Waring as street-cleaning commissioner. Waring created the first practical comprehensive system of waste management in the United States. His system required households to sort organic wastes, paper, ashes, and street sweepings into separate containers for collection. Waring's system even helped New York make a profit by reselling the recovered materials that were separated. New York City in 1897 creates a materials recovery facility where trash is separated into various grades of paper, metals, and carpet. Burlap bags, twine, rubber, and even horsehair are also sorted for recycling or reuse. 13
The first aluminum can recycling plants to open in the United States opened in Chicago and Cleveland in 1904. World War I saw shortages of raw materials from 1916 to 1918. The federal government created the Waste Reclamation Service. Their motto was, "Don't Waste Waste - Save It." The Waste Reclamation Service advertised extensively to encourage the public to save old rags and wastepaper. The agency was the first to advocate scientific methods of managing the United States' water, timber, land and minerals in an attempt to protect resources for future generations. For the first time in our nation's history, thousands of tons of old books, newspapers, and business papers are recycled by paper mills. The 1920's saw the introduction of landfills. This becomes a popular disposal method by reclaiming wetlands with layers of garbage, ash and dirt. From 1939 to 1945, World War II had the attention of the world. Once again, like in World War I, recycling became a major cause to rally behind. Americans begin to donate everything from doorknobs to girdles to help in the war effort. One magazine went so far as to say that salvaging the metal straps from corsets alone saved enough metal to build two warships.
In 1955, the August 1 st issue of Life magazine shows the country a lavish two-page spread of a family titled, "Disposable Living." The article talks about using disposable plates and silverware and celebrated their ability to cut down on household chores." A photo of the family shows them cheerfully throwing dozens of their disposables into the air. This had a profound effect on the American consumer. They began to look for single use items as a necessity of a modern life. Ease of use and convenience became two of the most desirable qualities American consumers looked for when making purchases. This had an extremely negative side-effect. American parks, forests and highways became littered with trash. In 1959, the American Society of Civil Engineers published a guide to landfilling. This guide called for compacting trash and covering it daily with a layer of soil to guard and protect against rodents. Later landfills will call for much stricter standards. New landfills must have a liner on the bottom and liquid collection systems that will pump out water as well as collect methane gas which is produced as waste decomposes. The Solid Waste Disposal Act is passed by Congress in 1965. This is the first significant recognition of waste as a national issue. The primary focus of the act is to start up a national research and development program and to help state and local governments with their disposal programs.
1970 could be considered a landmark year for the start of the modern day era of environmental concern. 1970 marks the "beginnings" of the modern day push for recycling in this country. April 22, 1970 marked the first "Earth Day" celebration in the United States. It was created by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson. The first Earth day had approximately 20 million Americans celebrating at festivals and fairs all throughout the United States. Recycling is one of the focuses, and it begins to evolve into a mainstream movement throughout this country. The United States Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970 as a government response to the public's growing environmental concerns, as well as the Office of Solid Waste began to examine problems caused by the generation and disposal of waste.
The California EPA guide continues on to 1995 with other various facts and tidbits about the history of recycling in this country. It is curious to see that at various times this country has rallied behind a cause and recycled all sorts of materials. At times, we as a country often still have the attitude of the family in the Life magazine article. We look for ease of use and convenience in so many areas of our lives. Can you imagine china plates, metal silverware, glass cups, and cloth napkins at a 4 th of July cookout? The host would probably have a heart attack just thinking about the clean-up afterwards! The flip side of that scenario is, think about how many bags of trash there would be if all the materials were reusable. To make this kind of change in thought process, it must be done with the children. They have to see using reusable items as the "norm" and disposable items used for that rare occasion.
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