1031 — Japan begins the first recorded use of waste paper for making new paper.
1690 — The Rittenhouse Mill near Philadelphia makes paper from fiber derived from recycled cotton and linen rags.
1776 — America declares its independence from England and rebels turn to recycling to provide material to fight the War of Independence. Scrap metal, paper and rags are used in the war effort.
1801 — In England, Matthias Koops receives the first patent for “extracting printing and writing ink from printed and written paper, and converting the paper from which the ink is extracted into pulp, and making thereof paper fit for writing, printing and other purposes.”
1810 — Peter Durand is granted a patent by King George III of England for his idea of preserving food in “vessels of glass, pottery, tin or other metals of fit materials.”
1840 — Men with backpacks and horse-drawn carts collect and recycle anything that has resale value.
1849 — The California Gold Rush and the Civil War created an urgent need for food that could be preserved for long periods of time and transported over great distances.
1865 — The Salvation Army is founded in London, England, and begins collecting, sorting and recycling unwanted goods.
1874 — Curbside recycling begins in Baltimore, MD.
1895 — New York City appoints Col. George E. Waring as Street-Cleaning Commissioner. Col. Waring administers the practical, comprehensive system of refuse management in the United States. The system requires households to sort organic wastes, paper, ashes and street sweepings into separate containers for collection.
1897 — New York City creates a materials recovery facility, now know as a MRF, where trash is sorted and separated into various grades of paper, metals and carpet.
1904 — The nation’s first aluminum can recycling plants open in Chicago and Cleveland.
1916 — The Chicago city jail initiates a unique recycling experiment as it puts prisoners to work collecting and sorting waste materials.
1916-1918 — Due to shortages of raw materials during World War I, the federal government creates the Waste Reclamation Service with the motto “Don’t Waste Waste — Save It.”
1929 — The Municipal Garbage Department of Sacramento, CA, increases its annual revenue by selling the city’s wastepaper to an independent paper company.
1935 — The first aluminum can for beverages is manufactured by a brewer in Newark, NJ. The can weighed 3 ounces. Sixty years later cans weigh just 0.5 ounces.
1939-1945 — Thousands of tons of material are recycled to support U.S. and Allied troops during World War II.
1948 — Market acceptance of frozen orange concentrate leads to the expansion of the frozen foods industry, with associated increases in packaging materials.
1955 — The August 1 issue of Life magazine offers a two-page article on “Throwaway Living.” Consumers are increasingly sold on the idea that single-use items are necessities of a modern lifestyle.
1964 — The all-aluminum can is introduced.
1965 — The Solid Waste Disposal Act is passed by Congress, the first significant recognition of trash as a national issue.
1970 — The first national Earth Day is held on April 22, founded by Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson.
1970 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is created as a government response to the public’s growing environmental concerns, and its Office of Solid Waste begins examining the problems caused by generating and disposing waste. Congress passes the Resource Recovery Act to shift the emphasis of federal involvement from disposal to recycling, resource recovery and the conversion of waste into energy.
1972 — Oregon passes the first “bottle bill” in the U.S,, requiring consumers to pay a deposit on bottles and cans, to be redeemed when the container is recycled.
1973 — The polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottle is patented by chemist Nathaniel Wyeth.
1976 — The Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act is passed. Among other things, it mandates that landfills become more closely monitored.
1986 — California enacts the California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act, placing a deposit on aluminum cans and glass and plastic bottles. Rhode Island becomes the first state to pass a mandatory recycling law for aluminum and steel (tin) cans, glass, plastic (PET and HDPE) bottles and newspapers.
1987 — The Mobro, a barge carrying garbage from New York, tries unsuccessfully to get rid of its load in six states and three other countries. The barge travels for six months before it is finally allowed to dump its load back in New York.
1995 — Americans recycle a record 47.5 billion soft drink containers. Aluminum cans are recycled at a rate of 63% in the U.S.
Source:
“The Illustrated History of Recycling”, California Environmental Protection Agency, California Department of Conservation.
www.p2pays.org/ref/26/25070.pdf
