Before reading this it might be good to read yesterday’s post.
So why did the Ecological movement return as a recycling issue? And what is the net benefit to the environment obtained by recycling?
First it is important to realize that recycling quickly grew into a major industry. In other words recycling exists because it is a business, a lucrative business.
Like any industry it’s success depends on increasing profits. If you look at the statistics you’ll see that recycling has not decreased the amount of trash we generate, in fact, the amount of waste has skyrocketed since the advent of the recycling industry.
The ecological movement went underground until it found a way to become profitable, to become economically viable. Once altered enough to generate substantial profits it became the PR darling of many ambitious fledging businesses. This is not to imply that all of the participants in the recycling industry are greedy or inhumane, it only points out the realities of succeeding in a profit based economy.
A relatively small amount of waste material is recycled. Even if the percentage of waste being recycled were to substantially increase, it still would not mean that our society was becoming more efficient.
If we were to become more efficient the first industry to go bankrupt would be the recycling businesses. Their success currently depends on increasing amounts of trash and of waste. They are totally dependent on our society producing escalating amounts of waste.
Without increases in waste they would lack the growth needed to increase their profits and sustain their existence.
True ecological efficiency would strip the industry of a sustainable profit margin.
Lets take a look at the use of milk, water and soda containers as an example of how a truly ecological system would work. In our current system recyclable plastic containers are produced and sold to beverage companies to place their beverages in. The production of these containers is in itself harmful to the environment both in energy used to produce the plastic, transportation of the bottles to beverage companies, and the toxic waste produced in the manufacturing process in making the plastic.
The bottles once used are available to be recycled. Yet, the bulk of the recycled plastic bottles aren’t used as plastic bottles. So an endless stream of plastic bottles need to be produced. The process of making ex-plastic bottles into new plastic bottles would still entail more energy, pollution and toxic waste to be generated.
Yet, in every step of the recycling process profit is made by someone in the chain, and costs are passed on to the next person (business) in the chain.
So, what would an ecological friendly recycling system look like in the beverage industry?
Instead of plastic we could use bottles. The bottles would need to be sterilized, but that could easily be taken care of somewhere in the chain. One option would be for the supermarkets to have conveyor belts which would sterilize the bottles before you filled the bottles with the beverage of your choice. The beverages could be dispensed into the the sterilized containers by a tap much like you use to get your drinks at a fast food restaurant.
So why won’t we use this method? The main reason is that its efficiency would prevent a number of businesses from making a profit. It’s a simple technology which is hard to make profitable.
Tomorrow I’ll state my case as to why I think a for profit society (capitalism) is incompatible with efficiency and ecology.
If you ever want to become dissillusioned with the recycling process I suggest you do a little research on the process by whcih newpaper is recycled. The entire process of leaching newsprint off of the paper and how the paper is made useable again is extremely toxic and relatively inefficient.
As I mentioned yesterday, I myself, do recycle. Yet, I do so realizing that recycling is not a solution to either pollution or waste.
More tomorrow.