by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Many people treat waste as something that sort of happens, something that is, but the truth is it is something that we do and produce, often unnecessarily.
We, you, I, everyone, or almost everyone, produces waste by consuming stuff that comes in packaging of some kind or the other and often made from materials that cannot be reused or recycled or disposed off safely without going trough a special process.
By far too many products that we buy are not just packaged; they are definitely over-packaged, and my favourite example are the replacement heads for Braun electric toothbrushes. Not only is each and every toothbrush – they come in packs of two or four – packed in its own little blister pack but the entire thing is then in a huge one that requires a can opener to get into. A total and utter waste of resources, as the claim of hygienic packaging does not wash here at all. And this is but one example. There are many more that could be found.
Waste is something that we do and not something that is and we must remember that.
Waste is something that we create in a number of ways, in addition to the afore mentioned packaging, by never being satisfied with what we have, having to buy new every couple of months, as is the case with many, to keep up with the trend of new cellphone, new iPod, new whatever other gadget.
Then every year or so we seem to be chucking out the “old” personal computer simple because we deem that we need to have an upgrade, and often new operating systems from Microsoft – new versions of Windows – do make older computers in fact obsolete as they cannot handle the demands of an ever more bloated Windows system. So, another load of waste.
And this is before we even come to the food waste, clothing that we think we have to replace every few months because it is “out of fashion” and so on.
Thus a waste mountain is being produced every day, and that just in our homes, by us a individuals, without even considering the waste that we produce in industry and in our offices.
Much of the packaging waste would not have to be if makers would rethink the way they package and much of other waste would not have to occur either if products would not have an obsolescence of less than two years factored in and be produced in such a way that they cannot be repaired if they do break; or when repair costs several times more than replacement.
Not that you even could get many things repaired anymore as the skills of fixing things have gone as well and the repairers of old, whether show menders, jewelery repairers, clothing repairers, etc., are mostly gone now and the skills were never passed on. Time we relearned them for the time will come that we can no longer live and work the way that we do presently.
Aside from the fact that we are running out of holes in the ground where to dump all the rubbish and very little, by comparison, actually gets recycled or can be recycled, and burning in the same way as recycling should only be final options, we need to reduce the waste that we produce – it does not just happen – and before even think recycle we must see how we can reuse and upcycle the waste that still does come along, so to speak.
I know that some industries now like the idea of waste as regards to getting recyclables materials; it given them an income as the “raw materials” and also as the products produced from the recyclables, the material should be reduced from being in existence in the first place.
As I have said before, recycling is the last resort, the final option, on the same level as dumping stuff in holes in the grounds, called landfill sites, and incineration.
Waste is something – as mentioned – that we do, that we produce, and not something that just is, that just happens. Thus, it is us who can stop it and we must stop it.
In the areas where we cannot stop it personally we must demand that the producers stop the practice of over-packaging things and that packaging that has to be is designed in such a way that it can be reused and upcycled by individuals. We must also demand that products are made – once again – in such a way that they can be repaired and that factored-in obsolescence becomes a thing of the past and that repair personnel be trained again.
It is up to us, as individuals, and a society as a whole, to stop creating waste and we have the power to force manufacturer and suppliers to reduce waste and to make products that will last not just for a few years for for generations, once again.
It is up to us.
© 2011
