The milk you drink today and the carton you recycle tomorrow could lead to a bench of the future. Lifetime Environmental Design makes benches, picnic tables, mailboxes, plastic lumber for decks and other items from recycled plastic. Some products use a combination of plastic and wood. One of its big customers is Walt Disney World. He estimated that the company, in business for six years, has kept 5 million milk jugs out of landfills.
Plastics are a fact of our lives, from milk jugs to bulletproof vests and space shuttles.
The state ranks 18th in the country for plastics manufacturing. Nationwide, in 1999, resin sales of plastic totaled 100.3 billion pounds. That's a lot of milk jugs, lawn furniture and table tops. You and I need to think about our milk jugs when they're empty. Next step recycle, then use products made from recycling.