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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRIP-- the woman you never heard of.. . . who changed our world.
RIP: The woman you never heard of... who changed our world!
Milly Zantow has passed away is Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin at 91. You likely never heard of her. And yet she affected your life every day for decades.
You know the little triangle symbols on plastics, with the numbers (1-7) inside, that tell you how to recycle? That's the "plastic identification code." We all know it, and we think it's been there forever. It hasn't. It began in the late 1970s, and it all goes back to a very sweet lady, a neighbor of mine, Milly.
The story goes that Milly took a trip to Japan and was impressed with how clean the country was, the lack of litter and plastic that was tossed away that she was accustomed to in the U.S. That inspired her to figure out how to recycle plastics, when there was no system, no infrastructure, no market, no funding, no awareness, no public campaign, to do so. It all started in the small towns of Sauk County, Wisconsin, where Milly lived. But let's let Milly tell the story, courtesy this nice short video made a couple years ago by students at the UW-Madison.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Milly Zantow, a woman who wanted to make a difference in the world... and did.
Milly had been living in the nursing home in town. Now we say good-bye to her. Wisconsin gave the world John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Gaylord Nelson. New heroes are being forged now, fighting the corrupt iron mine moguls up north and the frac sand mine industry in the west, building urban agriculture in Milwaukee and organic farming in the Driftless Region. But let's pay a quiet moment of respect to a dear lady who reached every home in the nation with her quiet determination.
. . .
Here is a 2010 article from the Wisconsin State Journal about Milly.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/04/1319112/-RIP-The-woman-you-never-heard-of-who-changed-our-world?detail=email
annabanana
(52,791 posts)niyad
(113,490 posts)JohnnyLib2
(11,212 posts)Big impact, indeed. RIP
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,501 posts)madinmaryland
(64,933 posts)Thank you!
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)sheshe2
(83,833 posts)May she rest in peace, thank you Milly.
LiberalElite
(14,691 posts)Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)for telling us about her.
Wow!
oldandhappy
(6,719 posts)mackerel
(4,412 posts)mountain grammy
(26,638 posts)Matilda
(6,384 posts)We use the same system here in Australia. I never knew how it started.
RIP Milly, one in a million.
countryjake
(8,554 posts)Many thanks to Milly!
Hekate
(90,751 posts)Thank you for sharing her story with us.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
TBF
(32,081 posts)interesting people. I think it is the proximity to Madison - probably some of the professors live/retire over there. I grew up a bit east of that area - more towards the Fox River Valley.
Great OP
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Little Star
(17,055 posts)myrna minx
(22,772 posts)northoftheborder
(7,572 posts)chervilant
(8,267 posts)and the heartwarming story of Milly Zantow.
SunSeeker
(51,587 posts)blaze
(6,367 posts)I guess I always assumed that those plastic numbers came from some corporate board room or something.
Those numbers ought to be called Millies or Zantows.
Thank you for sharing Milly's accomplishments: An unsung hero!
hopemountain
(3,919 posts)worthy of much appreciation.
lordsummerisle
(4,651 posts)Tree-Hugger
(3,370 posts)Milly
malaise
(269,103 posts)for a great lady