History Book: Recycling gets its start

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Monday, October 3rd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Today, the start of a U.S. recycling program, and the first person to circumnavigate the globe using only human power.

REICHARD: Plus, the premiere of the first widely-released film with an actor's face AND voice. Here’s Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: On the evening of October 6th, 1927, an unexpecting audience enters New York’s Warner Theater on Broadway. The movie being cued up by the projectorist: The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson—the well known vaudeville singer, comedian, and actor.

Most moviegoers know little of the film’s groundbreaking technology...

FILM: The introduction of the Vitaphone has been received, both by the public and the artistic world with a great deal of interest…

The 1920s are the heyday of big-budget silent movies. But studios began experimenting with pre-recorded music and sound effects. The Jazz Singer marks a turning point in the film industry.

Unlike later movies, the soundtrack isn’t printed on the film itself, but played separately on phonograph records. “Vitaphone” is a portmanteau of Latin and Greek—for “living” and “sound.”

The Jazz Singer uses intertitles—or on screen slides for much of the dialogue—but at one point Jolson's face suddenly appears in a screen-filling close-up and many for the very first time hear the actor’s voice as he speaks on camera:

FILM CLIP: Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothing yet!

The audience gasps. There are only about two-minutes of spoken dialogue in the entire film, but excitement builds as the story progresses.

FILM CLIP: SONG

Moviegoers even applaud after each of his six songs—as if he was actually performing them live. At the film's conclusion, the audience breaks into chants of “Jolson, Jolson, Jolson.”

But The Los Angeles Times is less enthusiastic in their review:

KIM RASSMUSSEN: “Jazz Singer scores a hit. Vitaphone and Al Jolson responsible. Picture itself second rate. Jolson’s singing is of course inimitable and the quality of his voice lends itself admirably to the Vitaphone…as much can not be said of his acting…”

The film is not a runaway success but does well enough to make it clear that “talkies” are the future of the industry.

Many modern critics lambast the film for its use of black face. But at least some film historians believe The Jazz Singer’s use of the theatrical makeup should be interpreted in a different light. Believing it is a reflection of the cultural struggles that feature prominently in the film’s storyline.

In 1996, the National Film Registry selected The Jazz Singer for preservation due to its cultural, historical and creative significance.

Next, fifty years ago this week Oregon becomes the first state to require a deposit on all beverage containers—including cans.

Distributors charge an initial deposit of 5 cents on each beverage sold to retailers. They in turn usually pass that cost onto their customers. The law then requires retailers to pay a refund value back to customers who return the containers.

The bottle bill is primarily a litter control effort. And it seems to have worked. According to the container recycling institute, 40 percent of all Oregon litter in 1971 were bottles. By the end of the decade, that number decreased to only 6 percent. Critics of the program point to other factors to explain the reduction.

Five years ago the state increased the refund to 10 cents per container. Nine other states have similar programs.

Residents in neighboring counties have tried all sorts of schemes to game the anti-litter program to make money…

SEINFELD: You could round up bottles here and run them out to Michigan…it doesn’t work. What do you mean it doesn’t work? If you get enough bottles together…yeah you overload your inventory and you blow your margins on gasoline. Trust me, it doesn’t work…

And even if Sinfeld’s Kramer and Newman could make it work, many areas have stiffened fines for returning out-of-state containers. Michigan has lost millions of dollars in bottle return fraud over the years. But a new 2022 law now classifies it as a felony—with sentences up to 20 years in prison for the most serious violations.

…In the city or in the woods. Help keep America, looking good.

And finally today, October 6th, 2007: British adventurer Jason Lewis pedals his small wooden boat Moksha across the English Channel from nearby France. As he arrives in England, he completes a journey that began on bicycle 13 years earlier:

LEWIS: I was drawn by the prospect of adventure, at 24 years old. I think a lot of people have that desire to go and cut their teeth on new challenges and test yourself and find out who you really are.

Lewis originally thought Expedition 360 would take just two years. He starts by bicycling to Portugal. Then pedals his human-powered boat for 111 consecutive days: crossing the 4,500 mile Atlantic Ocean to Miami.

LEWIS: I’d rather do this. Cross the Atlantic and Pacific. If I die, I die. But I'd rather have done this and get to 75 years old than not having done it and just led a mediocre life.

Instead of biking across America, Lewis decides to roller-blade. In Colorado he’s struck by a drunk driver—breaking both his legs. Nine months later he continues his trek. He then pedals across the Pacific Ocean—by way of Hawaii—to the land down-under.

By the time he gets to Australia the expedition is out of money. He spends the next 5 years fundraising before continuing. He bikes over the Himalayas, through Asia, and then across Europe before arriving in France.

In all, he travels through 37 countries—navigating challenging terrain and complex government roadblocks.

LEWIS: I've always had this adage that it's about the journey and not the destination. But that when I do cross that line, and finally reach the destination, it's it was like, all of this, all these emotions and all of the years of just perseverance, I suppose. And all the trials and the troubles and the disasters and just suddenly kind of rose up to meet me and it just completely overwhelmed me.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Paul Butler.

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