title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: For union by rank, a node stores its , which is an upper bound for its height. When a node is initialized, its rank is set to zero. To merge trees with roots and , first compare their ranks. If the ranks are different, then the larger rank tree becomes the parent, and the ranks of and do not change. If the ranks are the same, then either one can become the parent, but the new parent's rank is incremented by one. While the rank of a node is clearly related to its height, storing ranks is more efficient than storing heights. The height of a node can change during a codice_5 operation, so storing ranks avoids the extra effort of keeping the height correct. In pseudocode, union by rank is:


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: It can be shown that every node has rank formula_6 or less. Consequently each rank can be stored in bits and all the ranks can be stored in bits. This makes the ranks an asymptotically negligible portion of the forest's size.


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: It is clear from the above implementations that the size and rank of a node do not matter unless a node is the root of a tree. Once a node becomes a child, its size and rank are never accessed again.


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: A disjoint-set forest implementation in which codice_5 does not update parent pointers, and in which codice_15 does not attempt to control tree heights, can have trees with height . In such a situation, the codice_5 and codice_15 operations require time.


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: If an implementation uses path compression alone, then a sequence of codice_1 operations, followed by up to codice_15 operations and codice_5 operations, has a worst-case running time of formula_7.


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: Using union by rank, but without updating parent pointers during codice_5, gives a running time of formula_8 for operations of any type, up to of which are codice_1 operations.


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: The combination of path compression, splitting, or halving, with union by size or by rank, reduces the running time for operations of any type, up to of which are codice_1 operations, to formula_9. This makes the amortized running time of each operation formula_10. This is asymptotically optimal, meaning that every disjoint set data structure must use formula_4 amortized time per operation. Here, the function formula_12 is the inverse Ackermann function. The inverse Ackermann function grows extraordinarily slowly, so this factor is or less for any that can actually be written in the physical universe. This makes disjoint-set operations practically amortized constant time.


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: The precise analysis of the performance of a disjoint-set forest is somewhat intricate. However, there is a much simpler analysis that proves that the amortized time for any codice_5 or codice_15 operations on a disjoint-set forest containing objects is , where denotes the iterated logarithm.


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: Lemma 1: As the find function follows the path along to the root, the rank of node it encounters is increasing.


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: For convenience, we define "bucket" here: a bucket is a set that contains vertices with particular ranks.


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: We create some buckets and put vertices into the buckets according to their ranks inductively. That is, vertices with rank 0 go into the zeroth bucket, vertices with rank 1 go into the first bucket, vertices with ranks 2 and 3 go into the second bucket. If the -th bucket contains vertices with ranks from interval formula_15 then the (B+1)st bucket will contain vertices with ranks from interval formula_16


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: For , suppose we are traversing an edge from to , where and have rank in the bucket and is not the root (at the time of this traversing, otherwise the traversal would be accounted for in ). Fix and consider the sequence formula_27 that take the role of in different find operations. Because of path compression and not accounting for the edge to a root, this sequence contains only different nodes and because of Lemma 1 we know that the ranks of the nodes in this sequence are strictly increasing. By both of the nodes being in the bucket we can conclude that the length of the sequence (the number of times node is attached to a different root in the same bucket) is at most the number of ranks in the buckets , that is, at most formula_28


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: Disjoint-set data structures model the partitioning of a set, for example to keep track of the connected components of an undirected graph. This model can then be used to determine whether two vertices belong to the same component, or whether adding an edge between them would result in a cycle. The Union–Find algorithm is used in high-performance implementations of unification.


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: This data structure is used by the Boost Graph Library to implement its Incremental Connected Components functionality. It is also a key component in implementing Kruskal's algorithm to find the minimum spanning tree of a graph.


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: Note that the regular implementation as disjoint-set forests does not allow the deletion of edges, even without path compression or the rank heuristic. However, there exist modern implementations that allow for constant-time deletion.


title: Disjoint-set data structure

text: Sharir and Agarwal report connections between the worst-case behavior of disjoint-sets and the length of Davenport–Schinzel sequences, a combinatorial structure from computational geometry.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Plastic recycling is the reprocessing of plastic waste into new products. When performed correctly, this can reduce dependence on landfill, conserve resources and protect the environment from plastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Although recycling rates are increasing, they lag behind those of other recoverable materials, such as aluminium, glass and paper. Since the beginning of plastic production in the 20th century, until 2015, the world has produced some 6.3 billion tonnes of plastic waste, only 9% of which has been recycled, and only ~1% has been recycled more than once. Additionally, 12% was incinerated and the remaining 79% disposed of to landfill or to the environment including the sea.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Recycling is necessary because almost all plastic is non-biodegradable and thus builds-up in the environment, where it can cause harm. For example, approximately 8 million tons of waste plastic enter the Earth's oceans every year, causing damage to the aquatic ecosystem and forming large ocean garbage patches.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Presently, almost all recycling is performed by remelting and reforming used plastic into new items; so-called mechanical recycling. This can cause polymer degradation at a chemical level, and also requires that waste be sorted by both colour and polymer type before being reprocessed, which is complicated and expensive. Failures in this can lead to material with inconsistent properties, rendering it unappealing to industry. In an alternative approach known as feedstock recycling, waste plastic is converted back into its starting chemicals, which can then be reprocessed back into fresh plastic. This offers the hope of greater recycling but suffers from higher energy and capital costs. Waste plastic can also be burnt in place of fossil fuels as part of energy recovery. This is a controversial practice, but is nonetheless performed on a large scale. In some countries, it is the dominant form of plastic waste disposal, particularly where landfill diversion policies are in place.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Plastic recycling sits quite low in the waste hierarchy as a means of reducing plastic waste. It has been advocated since the early 1970s, but due to severe economic and technical challenges, did not impact plastic waste to any significant extent until the late 1980s. The plastics industry has been criticised for lobbying for the expansion of recycling programs, even while industry research showed that most plastic could not be economically recycled and simultaneously increasing the amount of virgin plastic, or plastic that has not been recycled, being produced.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Although plastics were known before the 20th century, large-scale production was not realised until WWII. With metal supplies allocated towards military use and an increased demand for high-performance materials, these hitherto untested synthetic alternatives became appealing. Nylon replaced silk in parachutes, while Perspex was a light-weight alternative to glass in aeroplanes. After the war these processes were commercialised rapidly, with the plastic age beginning from around 1950, greatly aided by the post-war economic boom.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Global environmental movements in the 1960s and 1970s led to the formation of environmental agencies in many jurisdictions, including the U.S. (EPA, 1970), EU (DG ENV, 1973) Australia (EPA, 1971) and Japan (JEA 1971). In this atmosphere of environmental awareness, plastic waste came under scrutiny. The earliest major development to abate plastic pollution was arguably the 1973 and 1978 MARPOL agreement, whose Annex V completely banned the dumping of plastics into the ocean.


title: Plastic recycling

text: As the threat of more regulation from the environmental movement grew, the plastics industry responded with lobbying to preserve their business interests. In the U.S., the Resource Recovery Act, passed in 1970, directed the nation towards recycling and energy recovery. By 1976, there had been more than a thousand attempts to pass legislation to ban or tax packaging, including plastics. The plastics industry responded by lobbying for plastic to be recycled. This involved a $50 million per year campaign through organisations such as Keep America Beautiful with the message that plastic could and would be recycled, as well as lobbying for the establishment of curbside recycling collections.


title: Plastic recycling

text: However, petrochemical industry leaders understood plastic could not be economically recycled using the technology of the time. For example, an April 1973 report written by industry scientists for industry executive states that, "There is no recovery from obsolete products" and that, "A degradation of resin properties and performance occurs during the initial fabrication, through aging, and in any reclamation process." The report concluded that sorting the plastic is "infeasible". The scientific community also knew this, with contemporary reports highlighting numerous technical barriers.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Globally, plastic waste was almost entirely disposed of via landfill until the start of the 1980s when rates of incineration increased. Although better technology was known, these early incinerators often lacked advanced combustors or emission-control systems, leading to the release of dioxins and dioxin-like compounds. The replacement or upgrading of these facilities to cleaner ones with waste-to-energy recovery has been gradual.


title: Plastic recycling

text: It was not until the late 1980s that plastic recycling began in earnest. In 1988 the U.S. Society of the Plastics Industry created the Council for Solid Waste Solutions as a trade association to sell the idea of plastic recycling to the public. The association lobbied American municipalities to launch or expand plastic waste collection programs and to lobby U.S. states to require the labelling of plastic containers and products with recycling symbols. This coincided with their introduction of resin identification codes in 1988, which provided a standard system for the identification of various polymer types at materials recovery facilities, where plastic sorting was still largely performed by hand.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Increasing globalisation during the 1990's allowed the export of plastic waste from advanced economies to developing and middle-income ones, where it could be sorted and recycled more inexpensively.


title: Plastic recycling

text: This formed part of a growing global waste trade, which saw the annual trade in plastic waste increase rapidly from 1993 onwards.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Many governments count items as recycled if they have been exported for that purpose, however the practice has been accused of being environmental dumping, as environmental laws and their enforcement are generally weaker in less developed economies and the exported plastic waste can be mishandled, allowing it to enter the environment as plastic pollution. By 2016 about 14 Mt of all plastic waste intended for recycling was exported, with China taking around half of it (7.35 million tonnes). However, much of this was low quality mixed plastic which was hard to sort and recycle and ended up accumulating in landfills and at recyclers, or being dumped. Recycled plastic has been used extensively in manufacturing in China, and imported plastic waste was predominantly processed in an informal sector that provided low-technology processing services. High-income countries such as Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States were the top plastic waste exporters.


title: Plastic recycling

text: In 2017, China began restricting waste plastics imports in Operation National Sword. Europe and North America suffered from extreme waste stream backlogs, and waste plastic ended up being exported to other countries mostly in South East Asia like Vietnam and Malaysia, but also to places like Turkey and India with less stringent environmental regulations. Governments including those of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand reacted swiftly to curtail illegal plastic waste imports by reinforcing border controls. With increased control of imports, repatriation of illegal containers is occurring although this remains a long and challenging process. Consequently, plastic waste containers accumulated in ports in Southeast Asia.


title: Plastic recycling

text: With global trading in waste becoming more difficult, attention has returned to solutions at a local level. Extended producer responsibility schemes have been proposed which would tax plastic producers in order to subsidise recyclers.


title: Plastic recycling

text: In 2019, international trade in plastic waste became regulated under the Basel Convention. Under the Convention, any Party can decide to prohibit imports of hazardous plastic waste and, since 1 January 2021, of some mixed plastic wastes. Parties to the Convention are required to make arrangements to ensure environmentally sound management of their wastes either through alternative importers or by increasing their own capacity.


title: Plastic recycling

text: The COVID-19 pandemic temporarily shrunk global trade in plastic waste, due among other reasons to reduced activity at waste management facilities, interruptions of shipping routes, and low oil prices which have reduced the cost of virgin plastic and made recycling plastics less profitable.


title: Plastic recycling

text: The total amount of plastic ever produced worldwide, until 2015, is estimated to be 8.3 billion tonnes. Approximately 6.3 billion tonnes of this has been discarded as waste, of which around 79% has accumulated in landfills or the natural environment, 12% was incinerated, and 9% has been recycled, although only ~1% of all plastic has ever been recycled more than once.


title: Plastic recycling

text: By 2015 global production had reached some 381 Mt per year, greater than the combined weight of everyone on Earth. The recycling rate in that year was 19.5%, while 25.5% was incinerated and the remaining 55% disposed of, largely to landfill. These rates lag far behind those of other recyclables, such as paper, metal and glass. Although the percentage of material being recycled or incinerated is increasing each year, the tonnage of waste left-over also continues to rise. This is because global plastic production is still increasing year-on-year. Left unchecked, production could reach ~800 Mt per year by 2040, although implementing all feasible interventions could reduce plastic pollution by 40% from 2016 rates.


title: Plastic recycling

text: A focus on global averages can disguise the fact that recycling rates also vary between types of plastic. Several types are in common use, each having distinct chemical and physical properties. This leads to differences in the ease with which they can be sorted and reprocessed; which effects the value and market size for recovered materials. PET and HDPE have the highest recycling rates, whereas polystyrene and polyurethane are often barely recycled at all.


title: Plastic recycling

text: One of the reasons for low levels of plastic recycling is weak demand from manufactures, who fear that recycled plastics will have poor or inconsistent mechanical properties. The percentage of plastic that can be fully recycled, rather than downcycled or go to waste, can be increased when manufacturers of packaged goods minimise mixing of packaging materials and eliminate contaminants. The Association of Plastics Recyclers has issued a "Design Guide for Recyclability".


title: Plastic recycling

text: The most commonly produced plastic consumer products include packaging made from LDPE (e.g. bags, containers, food packaging film), containers made from HDPE (e.g. milk bottles, shampoo bottles, ice cream tubs), and PET (e.g. bottles for water and other drinks). Together these products account for around 36% of plastics use in the world. Most of them (e.g. disposable cups, plates, cutlery, takeaway containers, carrier bags) are used for only a short period, many for less than a day. The use of plastics in building and construction, textiles, transportation and electrical equipment also accounts for a substantial share of the plastics market. Plastic items used for such purposes generally have longer life spans than, for example, plastic packaging. They may be in use for periods ranging from around five years (e.g. textiles and electrical equipment) to more than 20 years (e.g. construction materials, industrial machinery).


title: Plastic recycling

text: Plastic consumption differs among countries and communities, with some form of plastic having made its way into most people’s lives. North American countries (NAFTA) account for 21% of global plastic consumption, closely followed by China (20%) and Western Europe (18%). In North America and Europe there is high per capita plastic consumption (94 kg and 85 kg/capita/year, respectively). In China there is lower per capita consumption (58 kg/capita/year), but high consumption nationally because of its large population.


title: Plastic recycling

text: In 2012, 25.2 Mt of post-consumer plastic waste was collected in the European Union. Of this, more than 60% (15.6 Mt) was recovered and 40% (9.6 Mt) was disposed of with municipal solid waste (MSW). Of the 15.6 Mt of recovered plastic waste, about 6.6 Mt was actually recycled, while the remainder was likely used as refuse-derived fuel (RDF) or incinerated in MSW incinerators with energy recovery (about 9 Mt). While Europe can be considered a leader in plastics recycling, only about 26% of plastic waste is recycled.


title: Plastic recycling

text: The recycling activities of the largest produces of plastic waste have the greatest effect on global averages. These are a mix of advanced economies and large developing nations, however, not all of these publish official statistics on their plastic recycling rates. Others may release partial data, usually limited to population centres. This makes it difficult to draw accurate comparisons, especially as the published recycling rates vary hugely between counties.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Many plastic items bear symbols identifying the type of polymer from which they are made. These resin identification codes, often abbreviated RICs, are used internationally, and were originally developed in 1988 by the Society of the Plastics Industry (now the Plastics Industry Association) in the United States, but since 2008 have been administered by ASTM International, a standards organisation.


title: Plastic recycling

text: RICs are not mandatory in all countries, but many producers voluntarily mark their products. More than half of U.S. states have enacted laws that require plastic products be identifiable. There are seven codes in all, six for the most common commodity plastics and one as a catch-all for everything else. The EU maintains a similar nine-code list which also includes ABS and polyamides.<ref name="97/129/EC">Official Journal of the EC; Commission Decision (97/129/EC) establishing the ID system for packaging materials pursuant to European Parliament & Council Directive 94/62/EC</ref> RICs are clearly based on the recycling symbol and have drawn criticism for causing consumer confusion, as it implies the item will always be recyclable when this is not necessarily the case.


title: Plastic recycling

text: RICs are not particularly important for single-stream recycling, as these operations are increasingly automated. However, in some countries citizens are required to separate their plastic waste according to polymer type before refuse collection and for this RICs are very useful. For instance, in Japan PET bottles are collected separately for recycling.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Plastic waste consists of various polymer types, its exact composition will vary, but the estimated global average is shown below. Polyolefins make up nearly 50% of all plastic waste and more than 90% of waste is made of thermosoftening polymers, which can be remelted.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Recycling begins with the collection and sorting of waste. Curbside collection operates in many counties, with the collections being sent to a materials recovery facility or MBT plant where the plastic is separated, cleaned and sorted for sale. Anything not deemed suitable for recycling will then be sent for landfill or incineration. These operations account for a large proportion of the financial and energy costs associated with recycling.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Sorting plastic is more complicated than any other recyclable material because it comes in a greater range of forms. For example, glass is separated into three streams (clear, green and amber), metals are usually either steel or aluminum and can be separated using magnets or eddy current separators, and paper is usually sorted into a single stream. By comparison, about six types of commodity polymer account for about 75% of plastics waste, with the remaining 25% consisting of a myriad of polymer types, including polyurethanes and synthetic fibers which can have a range of chemical structures. Different polymers are generally incompatible with each other when recycled, but even items made from the same type of polymer may be incompatible depending on what additives they contain. Additives are compounds blended into plastics to enhance performance and include stabilisers, fillers and, most significantly, dyes. Clear plastics hold the highest value as they may yet be dyed, while black or strongly coloured plastic is much less valuable, as their inclusion can give discoloured products. Thus, plastic normally needs to be sorted by both polymer type and colour to give a material suitable for recycling.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Various approaches and technologies have been developed to sort plastic, which can be combined in different ways. As different polymer types can be incompatible with one another, accurate sorting is essential, although in practice no approach is 100% efficient.


title: Plastic recycling

text: The accuracy of sorting therefore varies between recyclers, producing a market where products are often not well standardised. This inconsistency in quality can act as a barrier to recycling. Bioplastics and biodegradable plastics currently account for only a small share of household waste but their increasing popularity may yet further complicate waste plastic sorting.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Sorting through waste by hand is the oldest and simplest method of separating plastic. In developing countries this may be done by waste pickers, while in a recycling center workers pick items off a conveyor-belt. It requires low levels of technology and investment, but can have high relative operating costs due to the need for a large workforce. Although many plastic items have identification codes workers rarely have time to look for them, so there are problems of inefficiency and inconsistency in the sorting process. Regardless, even advanced facilities retain manual pickers to troubleshoot and correct sorting errors by equipment. Globally, the process focuses on those materials which are most valuable, such as clear PET bottles, with a significant amount of the waste continuing on to landfill. Working conditions can be unsanitary.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Plastics can be separated by exploiting differences in their densities. In this approach the plastic is first ground into flakes of a similar size, washed and subjected to gravity separation. This can be achieved using either an air classifier or hydrocyclone, or via wet float-sink method. These approaches only allow partial sorting, as some polymers have similar density ranges. Polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) will remain together as will polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polystyrene (PS), and PVC. In addition, if the plastic contains a high percentage of fillers, this may affect its density. The lighter PP and PE fraction is known as mixed polyolefin (MPO) and can be sold as a low-value product, the heavier mixed plastics fraction is usually unrecyclable.


title: Plastic recycling

text: In electrostatic separators, the triboelectric effect is used to charge plastic particles electrically; with different polymers being charged to different extents. They are then blown through an applied electric field, which deflects them depending on their charge, directing them into appropriate collectors. As with density separation, the particles need to be dry, have a close size distribution and be uniform in shape. Electrostatic separation can be complementary to density separation, allowing full separation of polymers, however, these will still be of mixed colours.


title: Plastic recycling

text: This approach can be highly automated and involves various types of sensors linked to a computer, which analyses items and directs them into appropriate chutes or belts. Near-infrared spectroscopy can be used to distinguish between polymer types, although it can struggle with black or strongly coloured plastics, as well as composite materials like plastic-coated paper and multilayered packaging, which can give misleading readings. Optical sorting such as colour sorters or hyperspectral imaging can then further organise the plastics by colour. Sensor based separation is more expensive to install but has the best recovery rates and produces more high-quality products.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Plastic waste can be broadly divided into two categories; industrial scrap (sometimes referred to as post industrial resin) and post-consumer waste. Scrap is generated during the production of plastic items and is usually handled completely differently to post-consumer waste. It can include flashings, trimmings, sprues and rejects. As it is collected at the point of manufacture it will be clean, and of a known type and grade of material, and is usually of high quality and value. As scrap is mostly traded company-to-company rather than via municipal facilities, it is often not included in official statistics.


title: Plastic recycling

text: The majority of plastic waste is made of thermosoftening polymers, which can be re-melted and reformed into new items in a practice known as mechanical recycling. Globally, this is by far the most common form of recycling and in many countries it is effectively the only type practised. This predominance is due to it being the simplest and most economical form of recycling, in addition to it having a lower carbon footprint than most other processes. However, several factors can lead to the quality of the polymer being reduced when it is recycled this way, which limits its applicability and effectiveness. Thus, the limits of mechanical recycling are in practise often the current limits of plastic recycling overall.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Plastics are reprocessed at anywhere between , depending on the polymer type, and this is sufficient to cause unwanted chemical reactions which result in polymer degradation. This reduces the physical properties and overall quality of the plastic and can produce volatile, low-molecular weight compounds, which may impart undesirable taste or odour, as well as causing thermal discolouration. Additives present within the plastic can accelerate this degradation. For instance, oxo-biodegradable additives, intended to improve the biodegradability of plastic, also increase the degree of thermal degradation.


title: Plastic recycling

text: The quality of the product also depends strongly on how well the plastic was sorted. Many polymers are immiscible with one another when molten and will phase separate (like oil and water) during reprocessing. Products made from such blends contain many boundaries between the different polymer types and cohesion across these boundaries is weak, leading to poor mechanical properties. In more extreme cases the polymers may degrade one another, this is often the case with PVC, as it can generate hydrogen chloride which strongly affects condensation polymers such as PET.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Many of these problems have technological solutions, though they bear a financial cost. Advanced polymer stabilisers and can be used to protect plastics from the rigours of thermal reprocessing. Volatile degradation products can be removed by a range of devolatilisation techniques. Flame retardants can be removed by chemical treatment, while damaging metallic additives can be rendered inert with deactivators. Finally, the properties of mixed plastics can be improved by using compatibilisers. These are compounds which improve miscibility between polymer types to give a more homogeneous product, with better internal cohesion and improved mechanical properties. They act at the boundary between different polymers and are small-molecules possessing two different chemical regions, each of which is compatible with a certain polymer. This allows them to act like molecular-nails or screws, anchoring the areas of different polymer to one another. As a result, compatibilisers are normally limited to systems dominated by two particular types of plastic and are not a cost-effective option for unsorted mixtures of various polymer types. There is no one-size-fits-all compatibiliser for all plastic combinations. Even with these technologies, it is particularly challenging to recycle plastic so that it can meet food contact standards.


title: Plastic recycling

text: In closed-loop, or primary recycling, used plastic is endlessly recycled back into new items of the same quality and sort. For instance, turning drinks bottles back into drinks bottles. It can be considered an example of a circular economy. The continual mechanical recycling of plastic without reduction in quality is very challenging due to cumulative polymer degradation, and risk of contaminant build-up. In 2013 only 2% of plastic packaging was recycled in a closed loop. Although closed-loop recycling has been investigated for many polymers, to-date the only industrial successes have been with PET bottle recycling. The reason for this is that polymer degradation in PET is often repairable. PET's polymer chains tend to cleave at their ester groups and the alcohol and carboxyl groups left by this can be joined back together by the use of chemical agents called chain extenders. Pyromellitic dianhydride is one such compound.


title: Plastic recycling

text: In open-loop recycling, also known as secondary recycling, or downcycling, the quality of the plastic is reduced each time it is recycled, so that the material is not recycled indefinitely and eventually becomes waste. It is the most common type of plastic recycling. The recycling of PET bottles into fleece or other fibres is a common example, and accounts for the majority of PET recycling. Although this approach only delays material from heading to landfill or incineration, life-cycle assessment shows it to be of ecological benefit. Environmentally successful recycling displaces demand for fresh plastic production and if open-loop recycling achieves this then its benefits are indistinguishable from closed-loop recycling. If instead, it is used to produce new cheap and low-quality items which would not otherwise have been made, then it is not displacing current production and is of little or no benefit to the environment.


title: Plastic recycling

text: The reduction in polymer quality can be offset by mixing recycled plastic with virgin material when making a new product. Compatibilised plastics can be used as a replacement for virgin material, as it is possible to produce them with the right melt flow index needed for good processing. Low quality mixed plastics can also be recycled in an open-loop, although there is limited demand for such products, as in addition to poor mechanical properties, incompletely sorted waste often contains a wide range of dyes and colourants. When these are mixed during reprocessing the result is usually a dark-brown product which is unappealing for many applications. These blends find use as outdoor furniture or plastic lumber. As the material is weak, but of low cost it is produced in thick planks so as to be sturdy.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Although thermoset polymers do not melt, technologies have been developed for their mechanical recycling. This usually involves breaking the material down to a crumb, which can then be mixed with some sort of binding agent to form a new composite material. For instance, polyurethanes can be recycled as reconstituted crumb foam. Tire recycling similarly produces crumb rubber, which can be used as aggregate. Various devulcanisation technologies have also been developed to allow the recycling of rubber wastes, though few of these are commercially important.


title: Plastic recycling

text: In feedstock recycling, also called chemical recycling or tertiary recycling, polymers are reduced to their chemical building-blocks (monomers), which can then be polymerised back into fresh plastics. In theory, this allows for near infinite recycling; as impurities, additives, dyes and chemical defects are completely removed with each cycle. In practice, chemical recycling is far less common than mechanical recycling. Implementation is limited because technologies do not yet exist to depolymerise all polymers reliably on an industrial scale and also because the equipment and operating costs are much higher. In 2018 Japan had one of the highest rates in the world at ~4%, compared to 23% mechanical recycling, in the same period Germany, another major recycler, reported a feedstock recycling rate of 0.2%. Depolymerising, purifying and re-polymerising the plastic can also be energy intensive, leading to the carbon footprint of feedstock recycling normally being higher than that of mechanical recycling. PET, PU and PS are depolymerised commercially to varying extents, but the feedstock recycling of polyolefins, which make-up nearly half of all plastics, is much more limited.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Certain polymers like PTFE, polystyrene, nylon 6, and polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) undergo thermal depolymerisation when heated to sufficiently high temperatures. The reactions are sensitive to impurities and require clean and well sorted waste to produce a good product. Even then, not all depolymerisation reactions are completely efficient and some competitive pyrolysis is often observed; the monomers, therefore, require purification before reuse. The feedstock recycling of polystyrene has been commercialised, but global capacity remains fairly limited.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Condensation polymers bearing cleavable groups such as esters and amides can be completely depolymerised by hydrolysis or solvolysis. This can be a purely chemical process but may also be promoted by enzymes, like PETase, which is able to breakdown PET. Such technologies have lower energy costs than thermal depolymerisation but are more limited in terms of the polymers they can be applied to. Thus far polyethylene terephthalate has been the most heavily studied polymer, with commercial scale feedstock recycling being performed by several companies.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Energy recovery, also called energy recycling or quaternary recycling, involves burning waste plastic in place of fossil fuels for energy production. Its inclusion as a type of recycling can be controversial, but it is nonetheless included in the recycling rates reported by many countries, although it is not considered recycling by the EU. Care should be taken not to conflate it with incineration without energy recovery, which is historically more common, but which does not offset either future plastic production or fossil fuel use.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Energy recovery is often the default waste management method of last resort, a position previously held by landfill. In urban areas a lack of suitable sites for new landfills can drive this, but it is also a result of regulation, such as the EU's Landfill Directive or other landfill diversion policies. Compared to the other recycling options its appeal is largely economic. If the correct technologies are used then the plastics do not need to be separated from one another, or from other forms of municipal solid waste (garbage), which greatly reduces costs. Compared to the sometimes variable market for recyclates, demand for electricity is universal and better understood, reducing the perceived financial risk of operations. As a means of waste management, it is highly effective, reducing the volume of waste by about 90%, with the residues sent to landfill or used to make cinder block. Although its CO emissions are obviously high, comparing its overall ecological desirability to other recycling technologies is difficult. For instance, while recycling greatly reduces greenhouse gas emissions compared to incineration, it is an expensive way of achieving these reductions when compared to investing in renewable energy.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Plastic waste may be simply burnt as refuse-derived fuel (RDF) in a waste-to-energy process, or it may be chemically converted to a synthetic fuel first. In either approach PVC must be excluded or compensated for by installing dichlorination technologies, as it generates large amounts of hydrogen chloride (HCl) when burnt. This can corrode equipment and cause undesirable chlorination of the fuel products. The burning of plastics has long been associated with the release of harmful dioxins and dioxin-like compounds, however these hazards can be abated by the use of advanced combustors and emission control systems. Incineration with energy recovery remains the most common method, with more advanced waste-to-fuel technologies, such as pyrolysis, being hindered by technical and cost hurdles.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Mixed plastic waste can be depolymerised to give a synthetic fuel. This has a higher heating value than the starting plastic and can be burnt more efficiently, although it remains less efficient than fossil fuels. Various conversion technologies have been investigated, of which pyrolysis is the most common.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Conversion can take place as part of incineration in an IGC cycle, but often the aim is to collect the fuel so that it may be sold. Pyrolysis of mixed plastics can give a fairly broad mix of chemical products (between about 1 and 15 carbon atoms) including gases and aromatic liquids. Catalysts can give a better defined product with a higher value. The liquid products can be used as synthetic diesel fuel, with some commercial production taking place in several countries.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Life-cycle analysis shows that plastic-to-fuel can displace the production of fossil fuels and result in lower net greenhouse gas emissions (~15% reduction).


title: Plastic recycling

text: Compared to the widespread use of incineration, plastic-to-fuel technologies have historically struggled to be economically viable because of the costs of collecting and sorting the plastic and the relatively low value of the fuel produced. Large plants are seen as being more economical than smaller ones but require more investment to build.


title: Plastic recycling

text: Millions of tonnes of plastic waste are generated annually, and this has led to numerous solutions being developed, many of which operate at a considerable scale. A process has been developed in which many kinds of plastic can be used as a carbon source (in place of coke) in the recycling of scrap steel, with roughly 200,000 tons of waste plastics being processed this way each year in Japan.


title: Plastic recycling

text: The use of recovered plastics in engineering materials is being researched and is gaining ground. Ground plastic may be used as a construction aggregate or filler material in certain applications. While it is generally unsuitable in structural concrete, its inclusion in asphalt concrete, (forming rubberised asphalt), subbase and recycled insulation can be beneficial. An example of this is the construction of plastic roads. These are rarely made entirely of plastic but can incorporate significant amounts of plastic waste in their design. The practice is popular in India, which by 2021 had constructed some 700 km (435 miles) of highways. However, the practise has also come in for criticism, in-part over uncertainties over the leaching of plastic additives into the environment. Research is ongoing to use plastics in various forms in cementitious materials such as concrete. Densifying plastic materials such as PET and plastic bags and then using them to partially replace aggregate and depolymerizing PET to use as a polymeric binder to enhance concrete are actively being studied.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: Charles Wright (born May 16, 1961), better known under his ring name The Godfather, is an American professional wrestler. He is best known for his tenure with the World Wrestling Federation throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, and underwent several gimmick changes; the most notable were Papa Shango, Kama, Kama Mustafa, The Godfather and The Goodfather.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: Among other accolades, Wright is a two-time USWA Unified World Heavyweight Champion, a one-time WWF Intercontinental Champion, and a one-time WWF World Tag Team Champion (with Bull Buchanan). He headlined "Saturday Night's Main Event XXXI" against Bret Hart for the WWF Championship. Wright was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on April 2, 2016, under the Godfather gimmick.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: Wright first entered professional wrestling after being noticed tending to a bar by wrestlers during the filming of the movie "Over the Top". The wrestlers involved gave him the advice that, with his large body type and unique (tattooed) look, he should try seeking out Larry Sharpe and his Monster Factory to get into the business. Eventually Wright parlayed his training into a job with Jerry Lawler in the United States Wrestling Association (USWA) with the gimmick the wrestlers from the bar had given him and took the name "The Soultaker", taken from one of the tattoos on his arm. Even with his admitted limited skill set, he was given the USWA Unified World Heavyweight Championship on October 23, 1989, and held it for about two weeks.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: In February and March 1990, Wright wrestled for the South Carolina-based promotion South Atlantic Pro Wrestling as "Baron Samedi".


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: Throughout 1990, Wright made appearances in Japan with New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) as "The Soultaker". During his appearances with NJPW, he often teamed with Crusher Bam Bam Bigelow. His opponents during his time in NJPW included Masahiro Chono, Masa Saito, and Riki Choshu.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: In November 1990, Wright wrestled for the Catch Wrestling Association in Germany as "Rocky Las Vegas". In August 1991, he appeared with the Dallas, Texas-based Global Wrestling Federation as "The Soultaker".


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: In 1991, Wright was brought in to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) at the suggestion of his friend The Undertaker. He made his first appearance on May 28, 1991, at a "WWF Superstars of Wrestling" taping in Tucson, Arizona. Wright competed there and briefly at house shows as "Sir Charles", a play on both his real name and the nickname of National Basketball Association player Charles Barkley. The character was hardly used and never developed, and even when talking about it later Wright only remembers wearing robes he purchased from another wrestler to the ring.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: In January 1992, he was repackaged as a heel by the name of "Papa Shango", a horror-themed voodoo practitioner with an appearance reminiscent of the loa, Baron Samedi, as depicted in the 1973 film "Live and Let Die". Full of cryptic rituals and an occult, culturally exotic presence, the supernatural character carried a skull to the ring billowing smoke and could control arena lights (supernatural arena lighting control heavily associated with The Undertaker gimmick, according to Wright had its origins with the Papa Shango gimmick), allowing for strange goings-on in the ring, and later could "cast spells" to cause opponents pain and to make them vomit from afar.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: The Shango character debuted on the edition of February 8, 1992 of Superstars, defeating enhancement talent Dale Wolfe. Shango was then thrust into the spotlight almost immediately, running in on the Hulk Hogan vs. Sid Justice main event at WrestleMania VIII. Shango actually missed his cue to run in, hitting the ring late. The finish was supposed to be Sid getting disqualified because of Shango breaking up the pinfall attempt by Hogan after he hit the big leg drop. However, due to Shango getting to the ring late, Sid was forced to kick out of the legdrop to save the angle. Sid's manager, Harvey Wippleman then jumped on the apron, and the referee signaled for the disqualification at that point as Shango was just getting to the ring. The Ultimate Warrior then returned to the WWF by running to the ring and helping Hogan against Sid and Shango.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: After WrestleMania, Sid and the Warrior were scheduled to begin a feud. However, Sid had previously failed a drug test and was let go by the WWF. The feud was then re-written with Shango instead of Sid, where he would cast voodoo spells on his opponent. However, the angle went nowhere, as Warrior challenged Randy Savage for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam, with the rivalry never culminating. Meanwhile, Shango defeated Tito Santana in a dark match at the event. When Shango was finally set to have a match with Warrior in November 1992, Warrior was released from WWF. However, Shango received a WWF World Heavyweight Championship shot against Bret Hart on "Saturday Night's Main Event XXXI", but was unsuccessful. Wright's final PPV appearance as the Papa Shango character was at the 1993 Royal Rumble (where he was eliminated in under 30 seconds). He would appear in another pay-per-view dark match against Tito Santana at WrestleMania IX, with Santana getting the victory. Shango was seen infrequently on WWF television afterwards, and following a loss to Jim Duggan in a 1993 King of the Ring qualifying match, he made two final televised appearances against enhancement talent in June and July 1993.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: Wright's Papa Shango character was pilloried by fans, being voted the Worst Gimmick and the Most Embarrassing Wrestler in the "Wrestling Observer Newsletter" awards for 1992. Fin Martin of professional wrestling magazine "Power Slam", in a 2013 article, wrote: "Shango and his curses were a total embarrassment. Fans exhaled loudly each time he appeared on screen. Shango bombed, and deservedly so." Bret Hart liked the character and Wright's in-ring work, but found Shango's storyline with the Ultimate Warrior – in which a voodoo curse was placed on the latter – to be perhaps the second-worst creative concept in WWF history (after the introduction of The Gobbledy Gooker). Hart reported that WWF executive Pat Patterson did not like the gimmick and was responsible for its termination.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: At the same time as he was wrestling as Papa Shango in the WWF, the WWF had a working agreement with USWA. As part of the agreement, Papa Shango was sent to wrestle in USWA, where he won the Unified World Heavyweight Championship for a second time. Winning the title actually upset him, as he felt it was only done to sell to the predominantly black crowd, and after complaining to management he dropped the belt to Owen Hart. He left the company soon after and returned to bartending.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: During the autumn of 1994, there were rumors that the Papa Shango character would be brought back to participate in a storyline involving Bob Backlund, wherein Shango's voodoo spells would explain the traditionally good-natured Backlund's erratic and villainous behavior. This didn't come to fruition.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: As Papa Shango, he wrestled a summer tour for Otto Wanz' Catch Wrestling Association in 1994. In July, he had a shot at the CWA World Heavyweight Championship against Rambo, but lost. A year later on December 16, 1995, he returned as Kama and defeated Viktor Kruuger.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: Wright returned to the WWF in January 1995 under the antagonistic heel gimmick of Kama (nicknamed "The Supreme Fighting Machine"), a scrappy and competitive shoot wrestler inspired by Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter Kimo Leopoldo. Shortly after his debut, he joined Ted DiBiase's Million Dollar Corporation stable. He became an immediate part of the stable's feud with The Undertaker, stealing the Undertaker's signature urn at April's WrestleMania XI then having it melted down and formed into bling, but remained in possession of the bling urn remnants until November 1995 when King Mabel seized it amid a feud with The Undertaker. He was taken off of television in the fall of 1995, and after an appearance in the 1996 Royal Rumble match, Wright left the company again.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: Shortly after his departure, Wright had verbally agreed to join World Championship Wrestling to serve as the enforcer for the New World Order, but chose not to go to WCW after speaking to Ron Simmons. Wright then learned that WCW signed Virgil to be the NWO's enforcer by watching "WCW Monday Nitro" at home with his wife, and that they had signed him for less than what they offered Wright.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: Wright was asked to return in 1997, with the original plans being for him to revive the Papa Shango character. Instead he returned as Kama, now billed under his full name, "Kama Mustafa". He was announced as the first member of Faarooq's faction the Nation of Domination. On the June 16 episode of "Raw", Mustafa and Faarooq defeated Ahmed Johnson and The Undertaker. Mustafa became increasingly known as "The Godfather" of the Nation, a moniker which was the brainchild of Wright's wife and would become his official ring name in mid-1998. He stood with the Nation when Rocky Maivia became the leader shortly after Wrestlemania XIV, standing with Maivia, Mark Henry, D'Lo Brown, and later Owen Hart after he joined the stable in early May 1998.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: In 1998, The Godfather (known to wrestlers as a genuine tough guy) competed in the WWF Brawl for All; which was a strictly voluntary boxing / shoot fighting competition, eventually won by Bart Gunn. On a July 27 episode of "Raw is War", Wright debuted his "Hos", during a tag-match, with Nation member Mark Henry against the Legion of Doom. The Nation lasted until around September 1998 and officially disbanded in October 1998 when Henry attacked the Nation's leader The Rock.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: After The Nation split up, Wright had his most successful run with the company under the hugely popular persona of "The Godfather". The Godfather character would be constantly surrounded by "hos" – in reality girls from local strip clubs, actresses, or up-and-coming female wrestlers (Victoria and Lita were the best-known wrestlers to play the role, while Ivory was offered the role but was discouraged from accepting by Luna Vachon). He would offer his opponents the right to use these girls for "any purpose" if they would forfeit the match to him. The gimmick was highly popular with audiences, and he defeated Goldust for the WWF Intercontinental Championship on the April 12, 1999 episode of "Raw Is War". He was Owen Hart's scheduled opponent for the title at Over the Edge; Hart was fatally injured during a live stunt prior to the match's time. The Godfather was scheduled to lose the title to Hart's character, "The Blue Blazer," that night. The Godfather would instead lose the title to Hart's tag team partner Jeff Jarrett a week later. On the March 16, 2000 episode of "SmackDown!", he picked up the biggest win of his career, when he defeated the WWF Champion Triple H, due to interference from Shane McMahon and Big Show.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: On the July 24 episode of "Raw", Godfather faced Bull Buchanan, member of Steven Richards' ultra-conservative stable Right To Censor, in which he agreed to give up pimping if he lost. Buchanan defeated The Godfather, who promptly joined the stable and renounced his former ways. He began to dress in a formal white shirt and tie, and became known as "The Goodfather". At SummerSlam on August 27, Right to Censor defeated Too Cool in a six-man tag team match. On the September 11 episode of "Raw", Goodfather and Buchanan defeated the Acolytes. After the match, Val Venis attacked the Acolytes, joining the group in the process. At Unforgiven, Right to Censor defeated the Acolytes and the Dudley Boyz. At No Mercy on October 22, Goodfather and Buchanan entered into an elimination tag team tables match, which was won by the Dudleys. The next night on "Raw", Ivory was announced as the newest member of the group. Goodfather and Buchanan won the WWF Tag Team Championship from the Hardy Boyz on the November 6 episode of "Raw". At Survivor Series, Goodfather and Buchanan teamed up with Edge and Christian, to face the Hardys and the Dudleys in a losing effort. At Rebellion, the duo retained the titles against the Hardys. They lost the titles to Edge and Christian at Armageddon in a fatal-four-way tag team match also involving K-Kwik and Road Dogg and the Dudleys.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: The Goodfather entered the 2001 Royal Rumble match on January 21, 2001, at entry number 14, but was swiftly eliminated by The Rock. At WrestleMania X-Seven, Goodfather, Buchanan and Venis were defeated by the APA (formerly the Acolytes) and Tazz. Also at the event, Ivory lost the WWF Women's Championship to Chyna. On the April 26 episode of "SmackDown!", Right to Censor lost to the Brothers of Destruction on a 4-on-2 handicap match, after all other members walked out on Richards mid-match. Goodfather would continue to team with Buchanan, until the June 17 episode of "Sunday Night Heat", where they lost to the Dudley Boyz. The last time Wright would be seen on television was where he along with Buchanan and several WWF superstars attacked invading WCW wrestlers Chuck Palumbo and Sean O'Haire on an episode of "SmackDown!". For the remainder of the year, the Goodfather was completely absent from WWF programming.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: The Godfather, under his old gimmick and with his "ho's", returned at the 2002 Royal Rumble competing in the Rumble match. He failed to win however, as he was eliminated by Chuck and Christian. During the next six months, Wright competed in several television matches, usually on "Raw", "Heat" and "SmackDown!"'s sister show "Velocity". Godfather wrestled his final match on the June 8 episode of "Velocity", defeating Hugh Morrus. On the October 7, 2002 episode of "Raw" he made an appearance in a match between Jerry Lawler and his former Right To Censor teammate, Steven Richards in which the winner would get a night with the Godfather's ho's. This would be his final appearance on WWE programming for the next three years as Wright was released from the WWE in December 2002.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: In 2005, Wright appeared at WWE's Vengeance pay-per-view, interrupting Viscera's marriage proposal to Lilian Garcia in order to show Viscera what he would be missing out on if he asked Lilian to marry him. Viscera dropped the proposal and dumped Garcia for The Godfather's hos.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: On July 13, 2007, Wright returned to the ring for the first time in five years after his retirement, where he reunited with D'Lo Brown to defeat Jeremy and Bubba Blanchard in McMinnville, Oregon.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: In 2007, Wright appeared for WWE at the Theodore Long and Kristal Marshall wedding ceremony on the edition of September 21, 2007 of "SmackDown!", where he tried to convince Long and Ron Simmons to go back to the old partying days they had. After they refused, Godfather left the ceremony with his Ho Train, and was accompanied by every male wrestler in attendance and commentator John Bradshaw Layfield, leaving only Mr. McMahon, Jonathan Coachman, Hornswoggle, Gerald Brisco, Pat Patterson, Michael Cole and several Divas behind. Wright reappeared on WWE television during the McMahon family portrait during "Raw"'s 15th Anniversary on December 10, 2007, where he let Hornswoggle join his Ho Train.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: In late 2009, Wright returned to wrestling to take part in Hulk Hogan's "" tour of Australia. On November 21, Wright, using the new ring name "The Pimp Fatha", teamed with Nick Dinsmore to defeat Rock of Love (Billy Blade and Kadin Anthony) in a tag team match. On November 24, Big Daddy Row Row defeated Pimp Fatha and Sean Morley in a three-way match. Two days later, Pimp Fatha defeated Heidenreich. After the match, he hosted a bikini contest which was won by Lacey von Erich. Two days later, Pimp Fatha wrestled his last match on the tour and was defeated by Sean Morley.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: In January 2013, Wright made a short appearance with WWE as The Godfather at the 2013 Royal Rumble as entrant #17. He was eliminated immediately by Dolph Ziggler.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: Wright made a rare in-ring segment along with his longtime friend Val Venis and Dexter Verity in Future Stars of Wrestling, where he promised to bring his hoes if Venis and Verity would have succeeded defending their tag team titles. In September 2013, Wright resumed wrestling on the independent circuit.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: On the January 6, 2014 "Old School" edition of WWE "Raw", Wright made an appearance alongside numerous other legends and Hall of Famers.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: In spring of 2014 Wright made two appearances for Preston City Wrestling in England, as Papa Shango working against local star Bubblegum on both nights. In October 2014 at Elite Canadian Championship Wrestling (ECCW) Halloween Hell, Wright teamed with his old partner, Val Venis to face the team of then-ECCW Tag Team Champions Jordie Taylor and Daniel Adonis and the team of Ladies Choice and Eric Locker in a three-way elimination tag team match, but unsuccessful.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: On February 22, 2016, it was announced that Wright would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2016, under his Godfather persona.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: In June 2016, Wright appeared (as Papa Shango) on a season two episode of WWE "Swerved" on the WWE Network along with The Boogeyman, pranking people inside a shopping mall.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: He appeared on January 22, 2018, at Raw's 25th anniversary show, in a backstage segment with his former teammate Mark Henry, and his real-life wife. Later that year, Wright reprised both his Godfather and Papa Shango personas on the House Hardy Halloween special airing on the WWE Network on October 28, 2018. Wright appeared at the WWE Raw Reunion show on July 22, 2019.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: On November 22, 2020, he made an appearance at Survivor Series during The Undertaker's retirement ceremony.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: According to Wright, the Papa Shango character uses paint because Vince McMahon said his face did not match his body. During his last WWE appearances, Wright did not appear with girls. According to him, it was done because times had changed and the character was phased out.


title: The Godfather (wrestler)

text: Wright attended the University of Nevada, Reno where he was an offensive tackle on the football team. After leaving professional wrestling, Wright moved to Las Vegas where he managed the Cheetah's strip club. He married Denise Wright in September 2000, they have four children together. He has been married 2 times previous .


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: Cabbage Patch Kids are a line of cloth dolls with plastic heads first produced by Coleco Industries in 1982. They were inspired by the Little People soft sculptured dolls sold by Xavier Roberts as collectibles. The brand was renamed 'Cabbage Patch Kids' by Roger L. Schlaifer when he acquired the exclusive worldwide licensing rights in 1982.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: The doll brand set every toy industry sales record for three years running, and was one of the most popular lines of children’s licensed products in the 1980s and has become one of the longest-running doll franchises in the United States. Additional Cabbage Patch products, included children’s apparel, bedding, infants' wear, record albums and board games.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: According to court records, Roberts, a 21-year-old art student at a missionary school in North Georgia, discovered craft artist Martha Nelson’s Doll Babies. They came with a birth certificate and adoption papers. With the help of artist Debbie Moorehead, he hand-stitched dolls called "The Little People". Roberts modified the look of Nelson’s dolls, birth certificate and adoption papers sufficiently to get a copyright, and told potential customers his Little People were not for sale; however, they could be "adopted" for prices ranging from $60 to $1,000.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: The Little People were first sold at arts and crafts shows, then later at Babyland General Hospital, an old medical clinic that Roberts and his friends-turned-employees converted into a toy store, in Cleveland, Georgia.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: In 1981, at the height of Roberts’s success, he was approached by Atlanta designer and licensing agent, Roger L. Schlaifer about licensing The Little People. As Fisher-Price owned the name "Little People", the name was changed to “Cabbage Patch Kids.” His goal was to build the first and largest mass-market children’s brand in history. In order to attract potential doll manufacturers and to create the entertainment and publishing businesses he envisioned, Schlaifer and his partner/wife wrote the "Legend of the Cabbage Patch Kids". To make sense of how special cabbages gave birth to Cabbage Patch Kids, Schlaifer invented BunnyBees—the bee-like creatures that use their rabbit ears to fly about and pollinate cabbages with magical crystals. Since Roberts insisted on being a character in the story, Schlaifer created him as a curious, ten-year-old boy who discovered the Cabbage Patch Kids by following a BunnyBee behind a waterfall into a magical Cabbage Patch, where he found the Cabbage Patch babies being born in a neglected garden. To save them from being abducted to work in the gold mines operated by the villainess Lavender McDade and her two cohorts in crime, Cabbage Jack and Beau Weasel, young Roberts tried to save them by finding loving parents who would adopt them and keep them safe in their homes.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: In 1982, Coleco’s design team, headed by famed doll designer Judy Albert, devised an industry first—one-of-a-kind, plastic-headed Cabbage Patch Kids dolls with cuter features, softer bodies and a normal toddler’s proportions instead of the morbidly obese bodies on Roberts’ originals. It was those comparatively inexpensive - $18-$28 dolls, branded in packaging designed by Schlaifer and produced in Coleco’s factories in China, that succeeded commercially. Coleco cancelled all of its advertising as they tried to keep up with demand—shipping a doll-industry record, 3.2 million dolls. Sales of dolls in 1984, along with Cabbage Patch branded merchandise generated $2,000,000,000 in retail sales across North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: Coleco’s sales continued to climb right through 1986, when they reportedly over-shipped and lost ground in a legal battle with Schlaifer and Roberts over his introduction of “Furskins Bears” —a collection of hillbilly bears that competed with the Cabbage Patch dolls. Coleco's sales plummeted from over $800 million in 1986 to nothing in 1988 when the company went out of business.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: After changing the dolls’ name to Cabbage Patch Kids, Schlaifer contacted all the major doll companies in the country. Most declined — commenting that the look of Little People was too ugly to sell on the mass-market. Coleco – then famous for its success with electronic toys — were sold on becoming the Master Toy licensee, including an advertising guarantee.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: At the peak of their popularity, between 1983 and 1986, the dolls were highly sought-after toy for Christmas. Cabbage Patch riots occurred as parents literally fought to obtain the dolls for children. In later years, Coleco introduced variants on the original Cabbage Patch Kids, and derivatives of the original line of dolls continued to be marketed.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: When Coleco was producing the dolls for the North American market during the 1980s, they provided technical assistance to other doll manufacturers in Panama, Europe, Australia and Japan who wanted to use their molds.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: Hasbro took over the rights to produce Cabbage Patch dolls in 1988 after Coleco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and continued to make the dolls with various gimmicks, including dolls that played kazoos. Some of the more popular doll lines to come out under the Cabbage Patch Kids name included the "Birthday Kids", "Splash 'n' Tan Kids", and "Pretty Crimp and Curl". Hasbro produced a 10th anniversary doll, reintroducing Schlaifer’s original packaging – a practice that other CPK doll manufacturers would do to give sales a boost on various anniversaries. Hasbro gradually began making the dolls for younger children, which led to smaller and smaller dolls.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: In 1994, Mattel acquired the licensing rights to the dolls from Original Appalachian Artworks. Their first Cabbage Patch dolls hit the stores in 1995.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: The Mattel Cabbage Patch dolls were not limited to cloth bodies and included dolls made from vinyl, resulting in a more durable play doll. The Mattel dolls are mostly sized 14" or smaller, and most variants were individualized with a gimmick to enhance their collectibility, e.g. some dolls played on water toys, swam, ate food, or brushed their teeth.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: Some Mattel lines include the updated Kids line of basic cloth dolls that came with birth certificates, the OlympiKids that were made to coincide with the 1996 Olympics, and the Cabbage Patch Fairies. Additionally, to celebrate the dolls' 15th anniversary, Mattel created a line of exclusively female dolls with reproduction face molds, dressed in a reproduction dresses reminiscent of the original line and packaged in retro style box. These were 16 inches tall, the same measurement of the first Coleco Cabbage Patch Kids.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: In 2001, with Mattel’s sales stalling, a former Coleco marketing employee, Al Kahn, acquired Original Appalachian’s licensing rights and sold retailer Toys "R" Us on producing 20-inch (50.8 cm) Kids dolls and 18-inch (45.7 cm) baby dolls, both with cloth bodies and vinyl heads. They were packaged in cardboard cabbage leaf seats. In 2001, the 20-inch dolls debuted in the Times Square flagship store. These were created to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the line, and were available both online and in stores around the US. Expensive and demed too cumbersome for most young children to play with, they did not last long at the retailer.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: Play Along toys next obtained exclusive licensing rights to produce the Cabbage Patch Kids doll line. In 2003, again using Schlaifer’s original packaging, Play Along launched a Cabbage Patch Kids 25th Anniversary collection using some of the original head sculpts from the very first Coleco editions. Play Along also partnered with Carvel Ice Cream in a co-branding campaign. The resulting co-branded Cabbage Patch Kids were packaged with a Carvel-branded ice cream cone.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: JAKKS Pacific acquired Play Along Toys and assumed the master toy licensee for the Cabbage Patch Kids in 2011. Jakks introduced a 14-inch (35.6 cm) Cabbage Patch Kids Fashionality line and other Cabbage Patch Kid products. In 2013, Jakks Pacific released the Celebration edition to commemorate the 30th Birthday of the licensed Cabbage Patch Kids.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: In this line, WCT released new additions like Little Sprouts, a toyline of tiny collectable dolls, and Adoptimals, plush pets who interact with the Kids.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: The original 1982 Cabbage Patch Kids license agreement with Coleco Industries was negotiated by Roger L. Schlaifer, doing business as Schlaifer Nance & Company (SN&C), the exclusive worldwide licensor for Original Appalachian Artworks, Roberts' company at the time.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: Following Schlaifer Nance & Company's signing of Coleco Industries, SN&C designed and/or directed the design and quality of virtually all CPK branded products produced by its over one hundred and fifty CPK licensed manufacturers, including Coleco. They included the first children's licensed character diapers and low-sugar cereal, children’s apparel, bedding, stationery products, books, backyard pools, and thousands of other children's products – generating over $2 billion in retail sales for 1984, alone. Total sales during the Schlaifer's six-year tenure exceeded $4.5 billion, more than ten times the total revenues of Cabbage Patch Kids merchandise and entertainment in the thirty years since–the latter of which never made the impact Roberts claimed it would under his direction in the November 1983 addition of Esquire magazine. And while sales of the dolls and other licensed products declined precipitously in the late 1980s, the dolls have become a mainstay of the toy industry, and one of the few long-running doll brands in history.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: These limited edition dolls were available from Applause gifts and later by direct mail from the Danbury Mint. They have a rigid fabric body with porcelain legs, arms, and head.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: "Talking Cabbage Patch Kids" were among the last new CPK lines introduced by Coleco. They were equipped with a voice chip, touch sensors, a microphone, short range 49 MHz AM transmitter and receiver for communicating with other dolls. Touch sensors in the hands enabled the toy to detect when and how it was being played with in response to its vocalizations. For example, the doll might say "hold my hand" and give an appropriate speech response when the touch sensor in either hand detected pressure. It also had a movement detector to show the positioning of the doll and whether it was sensed to be on its belly, back, or even upside down. A special plastic 'drinking' cup containing a hidden magnet, which could be identified with the aid a small reed relay in the built into the head of the toy above the mouth, to signify when it should be seen to be 'drinking'. A more remarkable effect occurred when one doll detected the presence of another through its 49 MHz AM transmitter/receiver. The dolls were programmed to signal their "awareness" of each other with a short phrase, e.g. "I think there's someone else to play with here!", and then to initiate simple conversations "between the dolls themselves" with enough randomness to sound somewhat natural. The joint synchronised singing of 'rounds' being particularly impressive. The inclusion of the microphone was to delay the search and communication with another of its type when the ambient noise was above a certain level.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: Babyland General Hospital is the "birthplace" of Little People and is located in Cleveland, Georgia. With the help of local friends, Roberts converted an old doctor's clinic into a general store/souvenir shop and "doll hospital" from which to sell his original "Little People". The facility is presented as a birthing, nursery, and adoption center for the Cabbage Patch Kids. In accordance with the theme, employees dressed and pretended to be doctors and nurses caring for the dolls as if they were real. Babyland General moved to a new facility on the outskirts of Cleveland, Georgia in 2010 and has been voted one of the Travel Channel's top 10 toylands.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: Under the direction of ABC V.P. of programming, Squire Rushnell, and produced by Ruby-Spears with music by Joe Raposo, The Cabbage Patch Kids' First Christmas, premiered on ABC on December 7, 1984, and was the top-rated show in its time-slot.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: Additional shows include Cabbage Patch Kids: The New Kid, a stop-motion animated special produced by Goldhill Entertainment, and aired on the FOX Kids Network programming block on August 26, 1995. It was followed by four other stop-motion animated specials, "Cabbage Patch Kids: The Club House" in 1996; "Cabbage Patch Kids: The Screen Test" in 1997; "Cabbage Patch Kids: Saturday Night" in 1998; and "Cabbage Patch Kids: Vernon’s Christmas" in 1999.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: Roberts rejected an offer from ABC for an hour Saturday show combining Cabbage Patch Kids and Furskins Bears.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: Though Xavier Roberts originated the look of Little People, many of Little People’s defining characteristics – such as the dolls' overly round faces and that they came with an adoption certificate – were taken from Martha Nelson Thomas, an American folk artist from Kentucky. Before Roberts became involved in the toy industry, Thomas had created and marketed her own line of dolls, called Doll Babies, which she sold at local arts and craft shows and markets. Roberts began purchasing Thomas' dolls in 1976 to sell at a profit at his own store in Georgia. Thomas later stopped selling additional dolls to Roberts, prompting him to turn to a manufacturing company in Hong Kong to mass produce dolls similar in appearance to Thomas' at a cheaper cost. Thomas brought suit against Roberts and eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed amount in 1985. She and her husband, Tucker Thomas, told the press that she was more upset by the corruption of her dolls, for which she cared deeply, than the money she'd lost as the result of Roberts' actions. Thomas died in 2013, at the age of 62, with her most favorite dolls attending her funeral alongside her family members and friends.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: Roberts’ company, Original Appalachian Artworks, later brought a $30 million lawsuit against Topps, the company that produced grotesque trading cards parodying his company's dolls called the Garbage Pail Kids, for copyright infringement. Having sold over $70 million worth of the cards, Topps settled with OAA for $7 million—tantamount to a license—and retained the right to continue producing the Garbage Pail Kids cards.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: In a bitter legal battle with SN&C over whether OAA had violated their licensing Agreement with SN&C and Coleco’s exclusivity by producing a Cabbage Patch bear as a line of “Furskins Bears”, and failing to pay SN&C its share of the Topps settlement and refusing to allow ABC TV from doing a Saturday morning animated TV show, Roberts worked out a side deal with Coleco for tens of millions of dollars for a renewal of Schlaifer’s Cabbage Patch agreement, and jointly litigated against SN&C. The suit was settled in 1988 by OAA and Coleco paying SN&C an undisclosed amount of money. In addition, Paula Osborne, OAA president until Roberts worked out the deal with Coleco, sued over the share she was entitled to as a stockholder of OAA and received a seven-figure settlement. Six months after settling with SN&C, Coleco was out of business.


title: Cabbage Patch Kids

text: One of Mattel's line of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, the Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kids, was designed to "eat" plastic snacks. The mechanism enabling this was a pair of one-way smooth metal rollers behind plastic lips. The snacks would exit the doll's back and "magically" appear into a backpack. The mechanism could be de-activated by releasing the backpack. They were extremely popular during Christmas 1996. The line was voluntarily withdrawn from the market following an agreement between Mattel and the Consumer Product Safety Commission in January 1997 following several incidents where children got their fingers or hair stuck in the dolls' mouths leading to safety warnings from Connecticut's consumer protection commissioner, Mark Shiffrin.


title: English country house

text: An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country. However, the term also encompasses houses that were, and often still are, the full-time residence for the landed gentry who ruled rural Britain until the Reform Act 1832. Frequently, the formal business of the counties was transacted in these country houses, having functional antecedents in manor houses.


title: English country house

text: With large numbers of indoor and outdoor staff, country houses were important as places of employment for many rural communities. In turn, until the agricultural depressions of the 1870s, the estates, of which country houses were the hub, provided their owners with incomes. However, the late 19th and early 20th centuries were the swansong of the traditional English country house lifestyle. Increased taxation and the effects of World War I led to the demolition of hundreds of houses; those that remained had to adapt to survive.


title: English country house

text: While a château or a "Schloss" can be a fortified or unfortified building, a country house, similar to an "Ansitz", is usually unfortified. If fortified, it is called a castle, but not all buildings with the name "castle" are fortified (for example Highclere Castle in Hampshire).


title: English country house

text: The term "stately home" is subject to debate, and avoided by historians and other academics. As a description of a country house, the term was first used in a poem by Felicia Hemans, "The Homes of England", originally published in "Blackwood's Magazine" in 1827. In the 20th century, the term was later popularised in a song by Noël Coward, and in modern usage it often implies a country house that is open to visitors at least some of the time.


title: English country house

text: In England, the terms "country house" and "stately home" are sometimes used vaguely and interchangeably; however, many country houses such as Ascott in Buckinghamshire were deliberately designed not to be stately, and to harmonise with the landscape, while some of the great houses such as Kedleston Hall and Holkham Hall were built as "power houses" to dominate the landscape, and were most certainly intended to be "stately" and impressive. In his book "Historic Houses: Conversations in Stately Homes", the author and journalist Robert Harling documents nineteen "stately homes"; these range in size from the vast Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard to the minuscule Ebberston Hall, and in architecture from the Jacobean Renaissance of Hatfield House to the eccentricities of Sezincote. The book's collection of stately homes also includes George IV's Brighton town palace, the Royal Pavilion.


title: English country house

text: The country houses of England have evolved over the last five hundred years. Before this time, larger houses were usually fortified, reflecting the position of their owners as feudal lords, "de facto" overlords of their manors. The Tudor period of stability in the country saw the building of the first of the unfortified great houses. Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries saw many former ecclesiastical properties granted to the King's favourites, who then converted them into private country houses. Woburn Abbey, Forde Abbey and many other mansions with "abbey" or "priory" in their name became private houses during this period. Other terms used in the names of houses to describe their origin or importance include "palace", "castle", "court", "hall", "mansion", "park", "house", "manor", and "place".


title: English country house

text: It was during the second half of the reign of Elizabeth I, and under her successor, James I, that the first architect-designed mansions, thought of today as epitomising the English country house, began to make their appearance. Burghley House, Longleat House, and Hatfield House are among the best-known examples of the showy prodigy house, often built with the intention of attracting the monarch to visit. By the reign of Charles I, Inigo Jones and his form of Palladianism had changed the face of English domestic architecture completely, with the use of turrets and towers as an architectural reference to the earlier castles and fortified houses completely disappearing. The Palladian style, in various forms, interrupted briefly by baroque, was to predominate until the second half of the 18th century when, influenced by ancient Greek styles, it gradually evolved into the neoclassicism championed by such architects as Robert Adam.


title: English country house

text: Some of the best known of England's country houses were built by one architect at one particular time: Montacute House, Chatsworth House, and Blenheim Palace are examples. While the latter two are ducal palaces, Montacute, although built by a Master of the Rolls to Queen Elizabeth I, was occupied for the next 400 years by his descendants, who were gentry without a London townhouse, rather than aristocracy. They finally ran out of funds in the early 20th century.


title: English country house

text: However, the vast majority of the lesser-known English country houses, often owned at different times by gentlemen and peers, are an evolution of one or more styles with facades and wings in different styles in a mixture of high architecture, often as interpreted by a local architect or surveyor, and determined by practicality as much as by the whims of architectural taste. An example of this is Brympton d'Evercy in Somerset, a house of many periods that is unified architecturally by the continuing use of the same mellow, local Ham Hill stone.


title: English country house

text: The fashionable William Kent redesigned Rousham House only to have it quickly and drastically altered to provide space for the owner's twelve children. Canons Ashby, home to poet John Dryden's family, is another example of architectural evolution: a medieval farmhouse enlarged in the Tudor era around a courtyard, given grandiose plaster ceilings in the Stuart period, and then having Georgian façades added in the 18th century. The whole is a glorious mismatch of styles and fashions that seamlessly blend together. These could be called the true English country house. Wilton House, one of England's grandest houses, is in a remarkably similar vein; although, while the Drydens, mere squires, at Canons Ashby employed a local architect, at Wilton the mighty Earls of Pembroke employed the finest architects of the day: first Holbein, 150 years later Inigo Jones, and then Wyatt followed by Chambers. Each employed a different style of architecture, seemingly unaware of the design of the wing around the next corner. These varying "improvements", often criticised at the time, today are the qualities that make English country houses unique.


title: English country house

text: There are no written terms for distinguishing between vast country palaces and comparatively small country houses; the descriptive terms, which can include "castle", "manor" and "court", provide no firm clue and are often only used because of a historical connection with the site of such a building. Therefore, for ease or explanation, Britain's country houses can be categorised according to the circumstances of their creation.


title: English country house

text: The great houses are the largest of the country houses; in truth palaces, built by the country's most powerful – these were designed to display their owners' power or ambitions to power. Really large unfortified or barely fortified houses began to take over from the traditional castles of the crown and magnates during the Tudor period, with vast houses such as Hampton Court Palace and Burghley House, and continued until the 18th century with houses such as Castle Howard, Kedleston Hall and Holkham Hall. Such building reached its zenith from the late 17th century until the mid-18th century; these houses were often completely built or rebuilt in their entirety by one eminent architect in the most fashionable architectural style of the day and often have a suite of Baroque state apartments, typically in enfilade, reserved for the most eminent guests, the entertainment of whom was of paramount importance in establishing and maintaining the power of the owner. The common denominator of this category of English country houses is that they were designed to be lived in with a certain degree of ceremony and pomp. It was not unusual for the family to have a small suite of rooms for withdrawing in privacy away from the multitude that lived in the household. These houses were always an alternative residence to a London house.


title: English country house

text: During the 18th and 19th centuries, for the highest echelons of English society, the country house served as a place for relaxing, hunting and running the country with one's equals at the end of the week, with some houses having their own theatre where performances were staged.


title: English country house

text: The country house, however, was not just an oasis of pleasure for a fortunate few; it was the centre of its own world, providing employment to hundreds of people in the vicinity of its estate. In previous eras, when state benefits were unheard of, those working on an estate were among the most fortunate, receiving secured employment and rent-free accommodation. At the summit of this category of people was the indoor staff of the country house. Unlike many of their contemporaries prior to the 20th century, they slept in proper beds, wore well-made adequate clothes and received three proper meals a day, plus a small wage. In an era when many still died from malnutrition or lack of medicine, the long working hours were a small price to pay.


title: English country house

text: As a result of the aristocratic habit of only marrying within the aristocracy, and whenever possible to a sole heiress, many owners of country houses owned several country mansions, and would visit each according to the season: Grouse shooting in Scotland, pheasant shooting and fox hunting in England. The Earl of Rosebery, for instance, had Dalmeny House in Scotland, Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, and another house near Epsom just for the racing season. For many, this way of life, which began a steady decline in 1914, continued well into the 20th century, and for a very few continues to this day.


title: English country house

text: In the second category of Britain's country houses are those that belonged to the squirearchy or landed gentry. These tend either to have evolved from medieval hall houses, with rooms added as required, or were purpose-built by relatively unknown local architects. Smaller, and far greater in number than the "power houses", these were still the epicentre of their own estate, but were often the only residence of their owner.


title: English country house

text: However, whether the owner of a "power house" or a small manor, the inhabitants of the English country house have become collectively referred to as the ruling class, because this is exactly what they did in varying degrees, whether by having high political influence and power in national government, or in the day-to-day running of their own localities or "county" in such offices as lord/deputy lieutenant, magistrates, or occasionally even clergy.


title: English country house

text: The Country house mystery was a popular genre of English detective fiction in the 1920s and 1930s; set in the residence of the gentry and often involving a murder in a country house temporarily isolated by a snowstorm or similar with the suspects all at a weekend house party.


title: English country house

text: Following the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, a third category of country houses was built as newly rich industrialists and bankers were eager to display their wealth and taste. By the 1850s, with the English economy booming, new mansions were built in one of the many revivalist architectural styles popular throughout the 19th century. The builders of these new houses were able to take advantage of the political unrest in Europe that gave rise to a large trade in architectural salvage. This new wave of country house building is exemplified by the Rothschild properties in the Home counties and Bletchley Park (rebuilt in several styles, and famous for its code-breaking role in World War II).


title: English country house

text: The slow decline of the English country house coincided with the rise not just of taxation, but also of modern industry, along with the agricultural depression of the 1870s. By 1880, this had led some owners into financial shortfalls as they tried to balance maintenance of their estates with the income they provided. Some relied on funds from secondary sources such as banking and trade while others, like the severely impoverished Duke of Marlborough, sought to marry American heiresses to save their country houses and lifestyles.


title: English country house

text: The ultimate demise began immediately following World War I. The members of the huge staff required to maintain large houses had either left to fight and never returned, departed to work in the munitions factories, or filled the void left by the fighting men in other workplaces. Of those who returned after the war, many left the countryside for better-paid jobs in towns. The final blow for many country houses came following World War II; having been requisitioned during the war, they were returned to the owners in poor repair. Many estate owners, having lost their heirs, if not in the immediately preceding war then in World War I, were now paying far higher rates of tax, and agricultural incomes had dropped. Thus, the solution for many was to hold contents auctions and then demolish the house and sell its stone, fireplaces, and panelling. This is what happened to many of Britain's finest houses.


title: English country house

text: Despite this slow decline, so necessary was the country house for entertaining and prestige that in 1917 Viscount Lee of Fareham donated his country house Chequers to the nation for the use of a prime minister who might not possess one of his own. Chequers still fulfills that need today as do both Chevening House and Dorneywood, donated for sole use of high-ranking ministers of the Crown.


title: English country house

text: Today, many country houses have become hotels, schools, hospitals, museums and prisons, while others have survived as conserved ruins, but from the early 20th century until the early 1970s, hundreds of country houses were demolished. Houses that survived destruction are now mostly Grade I or II listed as buildings of historic interest—and only the most faithful, most accurate, and most precise restoration and re-creation are permitted. Such work, however, is usually very expensive, although the system does ensure that everything is done correctly and authentically. The negative side is that many owners cannot afford the work.


title: English country house

text: Although the ownership or management of some houses has been transferred to a private trust, most notably at Chatsworth, other houses have transferred art works and furnishings under the Acceptance in Lieu scheme to ownership by various national or local museums, but are retained for display in the building. This enables the former owners to offset tax, the payment of which would otherwise have necessitated the sale of the art works. For example, tapestries and furniture at Houghton Hall are now owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum. In addition, increasing numbers of country houses hold licences for weddings and civil ceremonies. Another source of income is to use the house as a venue for parties, a film location and a corporate entertainment venue. While many country houses are open to the public, they remain inhabited private houses, in some cases by the descendants of their original owners.


title: English country house

text: The lifestyles of those living and working in a country house in the early 20th century were recreated in a BBC television programme, "The Edwardian Country House", which was filmed at Manderston House in Scotland. Another particularly popular television programme that features the dynamics of life in country houses is "Downton Abbey", which aired on ITV in the United Kingdom and PBS in the United States.


title: Big Rip

text: In physical cosmology, the Big Rip is a hypothetical cosmological model concerning the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the matter of the universe, from stars and galaxies to atoms and subatomic particles, and even spacetime itself, is progressively torn apart by the expansion of the universe at a certain time in the future, until distances between particles will become infinite. According to the standard model of cosmology, the scale factor of the universe is accelerating, and, in the future era of cosmological constant dominance, will increase exponentially. However, this expansion is similar for every moment of time (hence the exponential law – the expansion of a local volume is the same number of times over the same time interval), and is characterized by an unchanging, small Hubble constant, effectively ignored by any bound material structures. By contrast, in the Big Rip scenario the Hubble constant increases to infinity in a finite time.


title: Big Rip

text: The possibility of sudden rip singularity occurs only for hypothetical matter (phantom energy) with implausible physical properties.


title: Big Rip

text: The truth of the hypothesis relies on the type of dark energy present in our universe. The type that could prove this hypothesis is a constantly increasing form of dark energy, known as phantom energy. If the dark energy in the universe increases without limit, it could overcome all forces that hold the universe together. The key value is the equation of state parameter "w", the ratio between the dark energy pressure and its energy density. If −1 < "w" < 0, the expansion of the universe tends to accelerate, but the dark energy tends to dissipate over time, and the Big Rip does not happen. Phantom energy has "w" < −1, which means that its density increases as the universe expands.


title: Big Rip

text: A universe dominated by phantom energy is an accelerating universe, expanding at an ever-increasing rate. However, this implies that the size of the observable universe and the cosmological event horizon is continually shrinking – the distance at which objects can influence an observer becomes ever closer, and the distance over which interactions can propagate becomes ever shorter. When the size of the horizon becomes smaller than any particular structure, no interaction by any of the fundamental forces can occur between the most remote parts of the structure, and the structure is "ripped apart". The progression of time itself will stop. The model implies that after a finite time there will be a final singularity, called the "Big Rip", in which the observable universe eventually reaches zero size and all distances diverge to infinite values.


title: Big Rip

text: The authors of this hypothesis, led by Robert R. Caldwell of Dartmouth College, calculate the time from the present to the Big Rip to be


title: Big Rip

text: where "w" is defined above, "H" is Hubble's constant and "Ω" is the present value of the density of all the matter in the universe.


title: Big Rip

text: However, observations of the galaxy cluster speeds by the Chandra X-ray Observatory seem to suggest the value of "w" is approximately −0.99, meaning the Big Rip will not happen.