I MADE IT UP: Saving the plastic trees

by Carl D. Clarke, Jr.

I consider myself a “green.”  I recycle anything I can.  I re-use plastic bags from Kroger as trash can liners.  I save those dark blue plastic bags from the liquor store and take them back to be refilled.  I figure, the more plastic bags that I recycle, the fewer plastic trees that need to be cut down.
I am old enough to remember history.  In the ‘30’s and ‘40’s, bakelite was all the rage, from ashtrays to radio knobs.  If it was modern in the ‘40’s, it was made out of bakelite. Millions of bakelite trees (bakelite sylva) were clearcut from American forests, and now you can’t find a bakelite tree anywhere. Not one. 
In the ‘50’s, America fell in love with plastics.  Everything that used to be bakelite now had to be plastic.  Companies like Dow Chemical and Tupperware were giddy with a burgeoning market, and told us there was an endless supply.  You remember that classic line from the 1967 movie, The Graduate, in which Norman Fell says to Dustin Hoffman, “I got one word for you, kid: ‘Plastics’.”
Thus, all of the “old growth” plastic trees were harvested in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s.  When the large forests were gone, the plastics companies harvested isolated slopes until all those trees were gone as well.

Not many people know about, or care about, plastic trees.  The plastic tree (plasticus arboretus) has sustained America’s hunger for plastic for 50 years. 
Well, wake up, America.  The plastic tree has become an endangered species.

Belatedly, the big plastics companies began a program to replant, and searched for the most viable trees.  They found a variant growing in Italy (plasticus andronicus) and a few in Brazil (plasticus orinoco). 

But they found that the hardiest trees were, amazing to tell, in the Muir Woods north of San Francisco.  John Muir, the famous conservationist, had saved some native American plastic trees among the giant redwoods.

So, with a $20 million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Plastic Tree Foundation is exploring ways to re-engineer the tree and re-introduce it to American forests.  Since only mature trees produce plastic, this is clearly a long-range effort.
Therefore, we all need to re-use plastic bags until the native American plastic tree once again proliferates in our landscape.  After all, it’s too late for the bakelite trees. 

Carl D. Clarke, Jr. from Abingdon is a weekly columnist for the Washington County News.  He may be reached at