by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Then we have the so-called recycling economy where we take, make, consume, and then theoretically recycle to make new products, with some waste still remaining. I specifically like to stress the word theoretically because while the consumer may diligently separate his or her recyclables which are then collected those, however, quite frequently end up in the same place where the waste ends up, namely the landfill or the incinerator because not enough money can, at times, be made from the recyclables.
The circular economy everyone is talking about but unless industry seriously changes the way it operates this will remain but a pipe dream.
Also, recycling and circular economy, the later which is more likely never to come about, are but ways and means for us to keep consuming in the same way that so-called green products are. We must reduce our consumption and we must return, in some respects, back to the future in that we need to do things again like they were done in the past, such as glass containers which are then reused, bottles and jars with refundable deposits (not new, we had that once already), tin cans, and simple cardboard packaging.
Glass and metal can be infinitely be recycled into new products, though the former should only ever be recycled if it is beyond reuse and cardboard will simply compost, even in a domestic compost heap or composting bin.
While glass and metal containers are heavier than plastic and thus weight as regards to transportation is an issue the benefits outweigh all the downsides as far fewer resources will be required and far less energy in manufacture. But we can guarantee that the plastic (packaging) lobby will find all manner of excuses of how bad it would be if we would do away with plastic packaging.
If we have to have plastic packaging than the material really should be recycled in the home country rather than the recyclables shipped abroad where they are turned into pellets to be returned to turn into products or where we re-import new products made from them. Alternatively those products (packaging) should have a second use designed into it that would be automatically recognizable by the consumer. Think of Avon the way it used to have bottles that would become toys for kids afterwards.
French and German mustard manufacturers to this day frequently fill their product, the mustard, into jars that are actual drinking glasses for reuse by the consumer and there was a time that some people would specifically buy particular brands of mustard just because they wanted those drinking glasses for reuse (and obviously they liked the mustard too).
Or the flour mills in the USA during the Depression era who, because the realized that mothers sewed clothes for their kids and others of their family and themselves, as well as textile items for the home such as bedding, from the white cotton bags printed them with patterns so they were even nicer for reuse, upcycling.
We have been there before and it is not rocket science but where would the economy be if we would do that, eh? It would no longer grow the way it does now and even less so if we actually made products last and made the repairable again.
Proper design and a return to some of the ways of the past, including packaging designed with an obvious reuse would bring us a great deal further than any playing about with the way we do at the present time.
That is not to say that there was no waste in times past. There was, as we can see when we do some digging in certain places but we could advance by putting the old together with a new ideas and we would have, more or less, no waste of any kind left.
When it comes to food waste there should be very little if people actually would learn to cook from scratch again and learn how to use and reuse leftover food.
But food waste reduction does not start with the consumer but well at the beginning of the chain and it is also not the farmer who is to blame but the buyers who reject some produce outright because it is not the right size or shape and then, also, such as when the farmer is contracted to a certain supermarket chain or other such entity, the farmer is not at liberty to pass on the rejected produce elsewhere but is forced to destroy the rejects. This must stop.
And any food waste that does occur, as some is unavoidable, must be returned to the soil by means of being composted, be that at home or in composting facilities.
Returning to ways of the past in the way products are produced, that is to say made once again to last and to be repairable, and then having the skilled workers again who can repair the things expertly when they are broken, at a price that is not several times higher than replacing, learning also once again to reuse and repurpose, together with ways of reclaiming all materials from anything that has come to the end of its life will really bring us a kind of circular economy, more of less. Whether, however, it will be entirely zero waste even then is rather questionable, but one can but aim for it.
© 2024
