Peter Karter Peter Karter ( 1922 – 2010 ) was an American nuclear engineer and one of the pioneers of the modern recycling industry . He lived in Old Lyme , Connecticut . Karter was one of the leading innovators in materials recycling and the first to engineer a " replicable system for mixed recyclables . " Personal life , education , and early career . Karter was born in Chicago , Illinois and died on March 30 , 2010 . He was a graduate of Morris High School ( Bronx , New York ) and of the United States Military Academy at West Point , and of the graduate school of engineering at Harvard University . Karter , the son of Greek immigrants , spent part of his childhood in Anavryti , Greece , and but his school years in the United States . Karter was a freshman at City College of New York when Pearl Harbor was bombed . Upon entering the Army he took a series of exams . One qualified him to be parachuted into Greece to work with the partisans . The other qualified him to be appointed to West Point where Congress had authorized an expanded Corps of Cadets to supply trained officers for a war that might prove lengthy . Karter served for a time in England before beginning West Point . He graduated with the class of 1947 and served with the Army of Occupation in Germany where he met his wife , Elizabeth Carmen Whitman , who was serving with the US Defense Department Army Special Services , a USO - like organization . The " Elizabeth B . Karter Watch Rock Nature Preserve " in Old Lyme is named in honor of Karter ' s late wife . Karter also served in Korea , and in Corps of Engineers flood - control projects in the United States . The Army sent him to earn a M . S . in nuclear engineering and physics at Harvard . He was serving as an instructor at West Point when his term of service ended in 1957 . After leaving the Army , Karter worked as a nuclear engineer for American Machine and Foundry , helping build reactors for Pakistan and Iran under the Atoms for Peace program . Recycling . Karter founded Resource Recovery Systems , Inc . It was one of " the first materials recovery facilities ( MRF ) in the US . " In the wake of the enthusiasm for recycling that swept the nation following Earth Day ( 1970 ) , many communities set up recycling programs that required householders to drive their cans and glass bottles to a recycling depot , sort the glass bottles by color , and throw them into large metal containers . Karter invented and patented industrial processes capable of sorting cans according to their metal content , and of sorting glass into colors and mechanically crushing glass ( a highly abrasive substance ) economically . The technical problem that he overcame was that glass is very abrasive . " Conventional machines at that time were either not sophisticated enough to sort and separate to Karter ' s satisfaction or wore out too quickly . ' I don ' t know how many glass breakers we tried . Glass is a very hard material . We finally found a compromise solution : we designed machines so that the working parts could be quickly replaced when they wore out . ' " Death . Karter explained his motivation this way , " At my age , it is easy enough to think that I will be dead before the environmental crunch comes down on mankind . I keep working because I keep thinking about my grandchildren . " Karter was buried in the Duck River Cemetery .