Remember the Mobro-"Managing Urban Wastes" at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry

When the exhibit "Managing Urban Wastes" opened in November 1986 at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, who would have thought that four months later a single tugboat-drawn barge out of New York would capture the attention of the nation? Yet it did. A homeless scow, in search of a place to unload 3,100 tons of baled refuse, traveled down the Atlantic Coast and across the Gulf of Mexico only to be rejected by six states and three countries. This "garbage without a country" immediately became material for comedians and newspeople, and a New Yorker cartoon caught the mood by picturing two rats aboard the Mobro remarking, one to the other: "In your wildest dreams, did you ever think you'd one day be cruising the Gulf of Mexico?"' But as the odyssey continued, the nation turned serious. The garbage scow became a Paul Revere sounding "an alarm about an imminent threat to American life posed by the vast tonnage of waste the nation produces." And, warned the New York Times editorial: "It dare not be forgotten."2 While individuals responsible for managing urban wastes hope Americans are more conscious of the garbage problem because of the barge, they fear that many will soon forget. Among those who handle waste, it is common knowledge that the most popular policy has long been out of sight, out of mind. This view is well reflected in the words of a woman responding to a question about a proposed recycling program: "Why do we need to change anything? I put my garbage out on the sidewalk and they take it away."3 The Museum of Science