400 BC - The first municipal dump is established in ancient Athens.
105 AD - Paper is invented in China by Ts'ai Lun.
200 - The first sanataion force is created by the Romans. Teams of two men walk along the streets, pick up garbage, and throw it into a wagon.
1388 - The English Parliament bans dumping of waste in ditches and public waterways.
1551 - The first recorded use of packaging: German papermaker Andreas Bernhart begins placing his paper in wrappers labeled with his name and address.
1690 - The Rittenhouse family establishes the first paper recycling mill on the banks of Wissahickon Creek near Philadelphia.
1776 - The first metal recycling in America occurs when patriots in New York City melt down a statue of King George III and make it into bullets.
1810 - The tin can is patented in London by Peter Durand.
1869 - The first commercial plastic, called celluloid, was developed by an entreprenurial maker of dental plates and novelty items. He had answered an ad placed by a supplier of billiards equipment offering a reward for developing a suitable replacement material for elephant ivory to make billiard balls.
1874 - The organized incineration of collected trash begins in Nottingham, England.
1885 - The first garbage incinerator in the US is built on Governers Island in New York Harbor.
1897 - The first recycling center is established in New York City.
1904 - Large-scale aluminum recycling begins in Chicago and Cleveland.
1912 - Cellophane (clear plastic) is invented by Swiss chemist Doctor Jacques Brandenberger, which encourages the use of plastic packaging.
1935 - The first beer can is produced by Kreuger's Cream Ale in Richmond, VA. Over the next six months, company sales increased 550% because customers loved the convenience.
1943 - The aerosol can is invented by two researchers at the US Department of Agriculture.
1944 - Styrfoam is invented by Dow Chemical Co.
1948 - Fresh Kills landfill is opened in Staten Island, New York. It later becomes the world's largest city dump. Fresh Kills and the Great Wall of China are the only man-made objects visible from space.
1965 - The Federal government realizes that garbage has become a major problem and enacts the Solid Waste Disposal Act. This calls for the nation to find better ways of dealing with trash.
1968 - The US aluminum industry begins recycling discarded aluminum products, from beverage cans to window blinds.
1970 - On April 22, the first Earth Day introducing the concept of recycling to the general public. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is established.
1971 - Oregon is the first state to use bottle deposits--5¢ per beverage container.
1972 - The first buy-back centers for recyclables are opened in Washington State. They accept beer bottles, aluminum cans, and newspapers.
1974 - The first city-wide use of curbside recycling bins occurs in University City, Missouri, for collecting newspapers.
1976 - Three people from Bartlesville, Oklahoma, get a patent on a method for purefying and reusing lubricating oils. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act is passed, which requires all dumps to be replaced with "sanitary landfills." The enforcement of this act will increase the cost of landfill disposal, and that will make resource-conserving options like recycling more appealing.
1986 - The city of San Francisco meets its goal of recycling 25% of its commercial and residential waste. Rhode Island becomes the first state to pass mandatory recycling laws for aluminum and steel cans, glass, newspapers, and #1 and #2 plastic.
1988 The Plastic Bottle Institute develops a material-identification code system for plastic bottle manufacturers. (This is our current #1-6 system.)
1990 McDonald's announces plans to stop the use of styrofoam packaging of its food due to consumer protests. On December 4, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi announced that they will begin using a recycled PET (#1 plastic) bottle made of about 25% recycled plastic resin.
Section I: Introduction (YOU ARE CURRENTLY IN THIS SECTION)
Section II: Present
Section III: Future
Complete Table of Contents
Reference