If you have babies still in diapers, do you use disposable ones rather than cloth diapers? Have you found that disposable razors and cameras are just too convenient not to buy? Few young people today have ever written with a fountain pen; ballpoint pens, some that are themselves throwaways and others with throwaway cartridges, have long since taken their place. Businesses order ballpoints by the thousands. Advertisers give them away by the millions.

Take-out orders of tea, coffee, colas, milk shakes, and fast-food hamburgers are no longer put in paper cups and on paper trays. Polystyrene containers have made them obsolete. There are plastic knives, forks, and spoons, all to be thrown into the trash after one use. The number and variety of throwaway conveniences are endless. “We have been a throwaway society,” said the director of the New York State Division of Solid Waste. “We simply have to change our ways.”

What can be said of milk bottles of plastic instead of glass; shoes of plastic instead of leather and rubber; raincoats of plastic rather than of water-repellent natural fibers? Some readers may wonder how the world was able to function before the age of plastics.

Although Americans alone toss into their garbage cans an estimated 4.3 million disposable pens and 5.4 million disposable razors on an average day, it is not likely that this society will step back a half century to the time before the age of plastics and high-tech disposables, even though the price we pay for these conveniences may be staggering.

The same can be said for disposable diapers. “More than 16 billion diapers, containing an estimated 2.8 million tons of excrement and urine, are dumped each year into a dwindling number of landfills around the nation,” reported The New York Times. More than 4,275,000 tons of discarded diapers may be an eye-opener. “It is a perfect case,” said a Washington expert on solid waste, “where we’re using a disposable product that costs more than a re-usable product, is more environmentally dangerous and uses up nonrenewable resources.” Are parents willing to tolerate the inconveniences of laundering their baby’s diapers or subscribing to a delivery service? To many, a world without disposable diapers is unthinkable.

Disposable diapers have become a symbol to environmentalists of the entire garbage problem. “What is worse,” writes U.S.News & World Report, “every plastic diaper made since they were first introduced in 1961 is still there; they take about 500 years to break down.”

What can be said for plastics? “The plastics industry has been scrambling to support recycling, mostly out of fear that its ubiquitous products will otherwise be banned,” said U.S.News & World Report. Plastic bottles, for example, can be turned into fiber for making polyester carpets, fillings for parkas, and a host of other things. The industry, however, does well to be concerned about its market. Some places have already passed legislation banning the use and sale of all polystyrene and PVC (polyvinyl chloride) products in retail food establishments. The ban includes plastic grocery bags, polystyrene cups and meat trays, and the polystyrene containers that hold fast-food hamburgers.