Bulletin Special Supplement Nov 1974

afterwards the straw will become fertilizer, w i t hout creating environmental pollution. But i n the industrial civilization, the life of luxury is graced by glamorous packaging. I n the supermarkets, vegetables, fish,meat and other items are wrapped in plastic, paper, a l um i n um foil, and other containers, and then loaded into layer after layer of paper bags, giving us a small mountain of packaging materials after unwrapping them at home. T h e Un i t ed States discards 50 million tons of packaging materials each year, including 48 billion cans, 2.6 billion bottles, 30 m i l l i on tons of waste paper, 400 m i l l i on tons of plastics, 73,000 tons of aluminum foil. Th is amount of glittering, silvery foil averages 200 tons of consumption per day which w i ll stretch out to 7,500 miles, more than enough to span the Un i t ed States twice. T he sheer quantity of this 50 m i l l i on tons of luxury waste packaging- rapidly pushed into the pages of history the traditional trades of retrieving used articles. Unlike paper and wood, wh i ch can be burned to ashes, plastic sheets and containers do not burn, but only melt into a sticky l ump, unbreakable, and non-biodegradable. A l u m i n um foil and a l um i num containers similarly do not rust, and are not biodegradable. Th is waste packaging, unlike traditional garbage, cannot be used as fertilizer and be returned to nature through the organic cycle. Re-use and recycling have been good traditional ways of disposing of old things and waste materials. But the collection, transportation, cleaning and processing of used materials often raise their cost above that of new materials, and the product is sometimes inferior to those made fro m new materials. Re-use and recycling, therefore, meet an unsurmountable obstacle under the profit motivation. T h is explains the lack of significant development of the popular movemen t of recycling of materials such as bottles and newspapers. Finally, the automobile symbolizes the dream of l u x u ry o f our modern times. T h e production of 100,000,000 cars and truck s in the U . S. consumes forty per cent of the nation's steel, mobilizes much of the nation's other forms of heavy and light industry, a nd these industries seriously pollut e the nation's environment. T h e operation of these o r e hundred m i l l i on automobiles spurts out a daily average of 230,000 tons of carbon monoxide contributing 85 per cent o f the pollutants of the air. T h e annual abandonment of .even m i l l i on automobiles has led to the appearance of many verticle j u nk yards around the great cities, junked car s being piled up like hills by high lifts. T h e 3,600,000 miles of beautiful highways indeed stand as the unmatched pride of America, but they also destroy huge areas of agricultural fields and forests. N ow environmentalists dub the automobile the perfect pollution machine. A few public-spirited citizens now b r i ng out the long neglected bicycle for short-distance transportation . T h e Americans are a highly rational people, and the grave pollution at last has aroused the attention of the American nation . I n academic circles, there has appeared the new fieldof environmental studies, wh i ch has coined a system of new terminology of its own, developed a new set of theories and concepts as well as a new scientific technology for the collection and disposal of wast e matter. Environmentalists have initiated a series of popular movements for environment protection, inspired many pieces of environmental legislation compelling industry to be responsible fo r the cost of environmental cleanliness, and set up many forms of government and civilian organizations for restoring ecological balance I f we regard the unceasin g g r ow th of mass production as the major source of - 1 2 -