The recycling program exists in part to manipulate us as consumers and cause us to spend more money on waste. Post-war, post-depression consumers were extremely uncomfortable with waste for moral and ethical reasons. The recycling program was a way of convincing them that it was okay to be wasteful as consumers.
But it’s a lie. Waste sent to recycling and then thrown in a landfill is even worse than waste that is simply thrown in a landfill in the first place. Even if we can show that despite the overhead, enough waste is diverted and reused or recycled to break even, we’re still behind on the game, because consumers were successfully induced to waste more than they would have if the program had not existed. It needs to do much better than break even to overcome the additional consumer waste, and I don’t think that it can.
Of course, people are not the same today, and if we took away the recycling program, they wouldn’t suddenly revert to acting like survivors of the depression. The damage has been done. Entire generations have been raised watching their parents throw consumer waste into the recycling bin like that magically absolves them of all responsibility. A generation raised to something doesn’t change. And there isn’t time to change their children.
Is it good? Do you have a comprehensive analysis?
The recycling program exists in part to manipulate us as consumers and cause us to spend more money on waste. Post-war, post-depression consumers were extremely uncomfortable with waste for moral and ethical reasons. The recycling program was a way of convincing them that it was okay to be wasteful as consumers.
But it’s a lie. Waste sent to recycling and then thrown in a landfill is even worse than waste that is simply thrown in a landfill in the first place. Even if we can show that despite the overhead, enough waste is diverted and reused or recycled to break even, we’re still behind on the game, because consumers were successfully induced to waste more than they would have if the program had not existed. It needs to do much better than break even to overcome the additional consumer waste, and I don’t think that it can.
Of course, people are not the same today, and if we took away the recycling program, they wouldn’t suddenly revert to acting like survivors of the depression. The damage has been done. Entire generations have been raised watching their parents throw consumer waste into the recycling bin like that magically absolves them of all responsibility. A generation raised to something doesn’t change. And there isn’t time to change their children.