The U.S. is fertile ground for such a debate. It has only five percent of the world's population, yet generates 19 percent of its wastes. Yet among the 20 most industrially advanced countries, it ranks only 15th in paper recycling efforts and 19th in glass recycling. Some 96 percent of U.S. plastic, and 50 percent of its paper, goes into landfills. Since 1970, voluntary curbside recycling programs have grown from just two to 7,000 today.
Recycling also has aesthetic value, reducing the amount of litter in communities.
Sales of the trendy drinks, which are mainly packaged in single-serve bottles. The piece drew more mail than anything the magazine had ever published, mostly from outraged recycling defenders. Like education and police protection, recycling may cost money, but its strategic value remains. Public officials have already begun to translate such devil's advocatism into anti-recycling policy. Only a few days after the Times article, New York's Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced his intention to roll back the city's recycling program, reducing pickups from once a week to every other week.