Does Recycling Deserve Applause?

You tell me. Watch this video and let's talk about it.



I absolutely loved this video when I first saw it (thanks to Laura from The Mindful Merchant for posting it back in March). While I'd hate to be in the spotlight like that and would probably freak out a little receiving a standing ovation in such a public area, it is nevertheless awesome that the folks who make the Testé sur des humains TV show came up with this flash mob idea. Briefly, the show features staged situations (with show hosts and guests as actors) that are meant to elicit a reaction from the public to test out whether everyday people are willing to step outside of their comfort zone. In essence, the show explores the human condition, and it's definitely a thought-provoking version of reality TV.

So, does recycling deserve applause? Did the woman in the video feel motivated to keep up the good work in her personal life, perhaps to take on a more challenging green lifestyle change? It's hard to say. I'm not sure exactly what matters here: recycling, or understanding that we share the responsibility for keeping public spaces clean? Maybe some of the people who came before the woman are avid recyclers but feel no need to tidy up after someone else. I'm sure at least one of those people believes it's the cleaning staff's duty, so why bother? From a scientific perspective, there are too many variables that can't be accounted for, making it difficult to pinpoint why one woman did what tens or dare I say hundreds of others did not do. However, I'd like to believe that if green behaviour was more appreciated in the same way that acts by good Samaritans are praised, we'd live in a cleaner world.

BYORB... Recycling Bin, That Is

I know, it's Friday, and I should be writing a Friday Feel Good News post, but there isn't much good news out there, not when the Canadian Government has decided to block the listing of asbestos on an international list of hazardous chemicals - apparently saving jobs in the industry here is more important than saving lives in the countries we export asbestos to, because that's not "our problem". So let's distract ourselves from that bad news with a look at a product you might see on store shelves soon: the Waste Folder.

Say you find yourself spontaneously having a picnic only to discover you have no method of transporting your recyclables back home. What will you do with that apple core? That aluminum drink can? Those juice bottles? Look no further than akarchitectes' Waste Folder, a cardboard package the size of a file folder that unfolds into a bag with six compartments to carry your plastic, glass, cans, paper, organics, and tetra packs out of the park in style. For lots of images that showcase the design, check out designboom - I don't have permission to show the images directly from this page.

I heard about this idea back in the winter, when picnics were just about the last thing on my mind. Strangely, I haven't found myself impulsively having any since the weather has improved, so I'm not sure this would be terribly useful. When I do plan picnics, I use an insulated picnic bag. Since it is large enough to carry my food and drinks into the park, it's large enough to carry the waste back out. Most importantly, I will continue to use it for years, whereas the Waste Folder looks like it wouldn't fare so well after the initial use - especially not the food waste compartment, which doesn't even look sturdy enough to be filled with wet organics!

The compartments would be useless to me, too, since curbside recycling pick-up in Toronto uses a "dump everything into the truck to be sorted later" approach to encourage higher participation rates among city residents. I'd be taking the time to sort my waste, then tossing it all into my blue bin once I got home. There's also a good chance I'd forget to take this item with me. Most days my purse can't hold anything as large as a file folder, already filled to capacity with a water bottle, travel mug, empty food container, fork, and cloth napkin!

So... what's the point? Is this perhaps more appealing to the recycling-unconverted, and I just can't see it because I've been carrying home my waste for years? Or is this truly designed for those who frequently go on unplanned picnics? The real question: would you use this?


Photo used under Creative Commons from Ian Westcott (iandavid/flickr).

Learn the 3Rs again, for the first time.

You know what sucks? There are people out there who feel good about themselves for recycling only a fraction of the items they bring into their homes, and stop there. Recycling was never meant to be used as an easy way to be environmentally-friendly. Technically speaking, it's the second worst thing to do with garbage besides dumping it on a landfill (with the exception of burning it, I guess). But I guess it's appealing to take the relatively easy step of separating paper, glass, (some) plastics, and (some) metals from the rest of the trash. For many people, once it's in a blue bin, it's out of mind, and it's "job well done".

But the well-done job has unsavoury side-effects. How much water is used to turn paper back into pulp? Or to clean a glass bottle well enough to be refilled? How much energy is used to melt down plastics and metals? How clean is the energy powering the plant? There are different reports out there, some claiming recycling is more energy-efficient than manufacturing products from raw materials, but there are so many factors that need to be taken into account (type of material, process used, fuel efficiency of vehicles used in weekly curbside pickups, etc.) that it's almost impossible to decide which option is better. The bottom line is that both are wasteful compared to reducing consumption and reusing items within the home.

I'm sure this is all old hat to everyone. What really prompted me to write about the downsides of recycling is the unsettling news that the city I live in sells a significant amount of its recycling to China, where the local cheap labour force sorts and recycles it into things like shoes, which are then shipped back across the ocean and sold to us (because last year's styles are so... last year). What a convenient little system that supports poverty halfway across the world - perhaps I need to start a second blog that comments on the intersection of environmental issues and social injustice? Back to my point: I realize building a brand new recycling plant here is no small matter and probably quite expensive, but I tend to be the kind of person who hopes that creating jobs and supporting the local economy is more important. There I go being idealistic again...

My hope is that we can educate each other on recycling and realize that it's not the solution. I hate hearing people say, "at least I can recycle it" when they buy a bottle of water, as though that makes everything better. Of course, at the end of the day, I'd rather see an empty soft drink can in a blue bin than a trash can! But that's mainly because we know conclusively that recycling aluminum is much less energy-intensive that refining it from scratch. Not so for many other products. I'm just hoping we continually remind ourselves that recycling is the last and least beneficial of the 3Rs. It's a good starting point, but that's all it is.

So, to recap: first, reduce consumption. Buy less, and when you do buy, choose products with less packaging and carry them home in reusable bags (preferably not the ones made in China). Second, reuse items, whether for the same function (travel mug) or a new one (repurposing clothing as rags for cleaning). You can also regift and even upcycle useless scraps of material into higher quality products. Then, once you run out of clever and creative ideas, by all means, recycle instead of trashing your stuff!