Plastics are clearly one of the great chemical inventions of all time. It would probably be impossible to list all the ways in which plastics are used in everyday life. Suffice to say that, in the early 1990s, more than 60 billion pounds (27 billion kg) of plastics were produced in the United States alone each year.

For their many advantages, plastics also create some serious environmental problems. About one third, 20 billion pounds (9 billion kg), of all plastics now produced are used for short-term purposes, such as shopping bags and wrapping material. These plastics are used once, briefly, and then discarded.

Current estimates are that plastic materials make up about 7 percent by weight and 18 percent by volume of all municipal wastes. Since most plastics do not degrade naturally, they will continue to be a part of the nation's (and the world's) solid waste problem for decades.

One solution...