Recycling - the easy way out

I guess we have been recycling in some form for 15 years or so. We used to have to separate everything by type and put it in that little blue bin. Inevitably the guys would come around and "separate" all the stuff that isn't supposed to be recycled, no matter how well you hid it, and leave it in the bin. The now lighter bin would blow over and scatter it all out so the neighbors could see your treachery.

Thankfully, we have moved on. Today our recycling program is one of the best in the country. It's called "single stream" meaning you don't have to sort the stuff. You still have some limits, (did you know pizza boxes were verboten?) so you still have to cull (hide) some stuff.

Because we now have a big roll around bin, the same size as our trash bin, it's really easy to compare the percentage of recycled stuff to garbage. Mine runs about 1/4 garbage and 3/4 recycling per week. I always feel good about that...or at least I used to...

It turns out that recycling is passe'. Most green folks call it downcycling. It's where you take something valuable and turn it into something less valuable. Much of our recycling does exactly that. Take your shiny Nieman Marcus catalog and grind it up into cellulose insulation.

It's also not near as eco-friendly as just not acquiring the stuff that needs recycling. Like paying attention to packaging, how many boxes, bags etc come into your home. That's why neither paper nor plastic is green anymore. Water bottles? Just say no, (once you go through withdrawals it's not that bad. Just buy a single bottle and fill it up with filtered water.) Come down to White Rock lake right after a flooding rain, you will be stunned by the number of plastic water bottles all over the banks.

So what was rewarding, filling up my recycling bin, is now a concern...why so much stuff to recycle? Well, I'll tell you why, it's the mailman! His job is to allow other people to send you stuff that goes right from the mailbox to the recycling bin. (I wonder if I could just put the bin next to the mailbox and cut out the middleman...me!)

I seems patently unfair that other people can be so careless with who they send a Restoration Hardware catalog to for the fourth time this month, but they do...you're left with the guilt of recycling it! Given this scenario, I decided to take control!

First I found a web site that lets you stop all those phone books. I pick mine up off the porch walk straight to the bin... I signed up and felt great, right up to part when they came again last month.

I found another site that lets you stop magazines, credit card offers, coupon circulars etc. Now that one works! My recycling has gone way down!

Bottom Line #1 - Recycling is important but it's still wasteful of earth's resources, and it's up to you to control the waste stream that enters your home. Nothing wrong with using stuff, just cut out the things you don't need or didn't ask for and don't let recycling be a panacea for waste.

Around the country, municipalities are rethinking their recycling program because there is now more recycling materials than there is demand for it. (Recession). Some are even storing the material waiting for prices to go back up. It does illustrate how much stuff we are downcycling when we overrun demand in a downturn.

There are a number of forward thinking manufacturers and retailers looking for ways to reduce packaging or make them out of products that are easier to recycle back to the same use, instead of downcycling.

In Texas we have a very progressive group that got legislation passed to force computer makers to give you free recycling! They are working on TV's right now and other forms of E-waste. They are making the manufacturer's take responsibility for the entire life cycle of their product. That way you don't have to be the one feeling guilty because you let it in your house.

Bottom Line #2 - Recycling is a step in the right direction but making the producers of the waste, rather than the consumer responsible, has a lot of merit. It's the only way they will rethink their products to be cradle to cradle, rather than cradle to grave. That way we can still buy the 14th generation I-phone with a clear conscious.

So besides all that, why else do we care? Plastics are a petroleum product. Care to send another American into battle to protect our supply? Paper used to be a tree. Not a dead tree but a live magnificent tree with a loving family of spotted owls living...(ok a little overboard there). Also, paper mills send a lot of stuff into our water. If I peer into my recycling bin right now there will be mostly plastic and paper.

Aluminum cans would be really easy to recycle except they are two different alloys and the paint messes the whole batch up so they aren't even recycled into cans again!

Besides all that, I care because we will run out of stuff...especially clean stuff like air and water unless we can reign in our wastefulness. I have a brand new niece (#7) that I have to look in the eye. We all know somebody young that needs us to do the right thing.