The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology. – E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, 1973
In the sixties, you could always insult a guy by calling him “plastic.” It meant he was phony or superficial. The opposite of plastic was “real.” – Elizabeth Royte, Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, 2005