Spring Break
Recycling no match for hyper consumption
M. Alex Stephens
Issue date: 11/5/09 Section: Opinion
On Halloween, Chipotle has a real cool offer. If you dress up in aluminum foil, like one of their tantalizing burritos, you'll receive a free meal. You probably saw all the shiny college kids there Saturday night.
That got me thinking, just what's up with recycling nowadays? Has it gotten us anywhere? Are we still producing the nightmarish mountains of garbage that Captain Planet so vigorously fought? Have we made any headway toward becoming more sustainable?
Americans are still producing heaps of trash. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, between 1960 and 2007, the average Americans' daily waste has nearly doubled from 2.7 to 4.6 pounds per day.
That really stinks, but the upside is that we are recycling more than ever. Roughly 30 percent of our total waste is finding its way to recycling centers, which includes more than half of all aluminum discard and 57 percent of all paper.
The Internet is littered with all sorts of statistics advocating the positives of recycling: Energy savings, resources preservation, jobs created, averting climate disaster, defending ground water, yada yada. Recent polls say recycling is good, and evidence supports it.
That's all fine and dandy, but is it helping to sustain our environment? No. Think about the three R's: reduce, reuse and recycle. We're still individually producing 60,000 pounds of pure waste throughout our lifetime, assuming each of us recycles as much as possible bringing it down from 90,000 pounds. Recycling is good without a doubt, but something deeper utterly negates it.
The root cause of all the environmental disaster we hear about every day, from mass deforestation to the death of the Chesapeake Bay to global warming, is blindingly clear. It's been there since our generation was conceived.
It's been programmed so purely into our foundational thoughts that we don't perceive it anymore, yet we are completely reliant on it. Simply, it's our way of life. It's hyper-capitalism, the unnatural enemy of the earth.
That got me thinking, just what's up with recycling nowadays? Has it gotten us anywhere? Are we still producing the nightmarish mountains of garbage that Captain Planet so vigorously fought? Have we made any headway toward becoming more sustainable?
Americans are still producing heaps of trash. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, between 1960 and 2007, the average Americans' daily waste has nearly doubled from 2.7 to 4.6 pounds per day.
That really stinks, but the upside is that we are recycling more than ever. Roughly 30 percent of our total waste is finding its way to recycling centers, which includes more than half of all aluminum discard and 57 percent of all paper.
The Internet is littered with all sorts of statistics advocating the positives of recycling: Energy savings, resources preservation, jobs created, averting climate disaster, defending ground water, yada yada. Recent polls say recycling is good, and evidence supports it.
That's all fine and dandy, but is it helping to sustain our environment? No. Think about the three R's: reduce, reuse and recycle. We're still individually producing 60,000 pounds of pure waste throughout our lifetime, assuming each of us recycles as much as possible bringing it down from 90,000 pounds. Recycling is good without a doubt, but something deeper utterly negates it.
The root cause of all the environmental disaster we hear about every day, from mass deforestation to the death of the Chesapeake Bay to global warming, is blindingly clear. It's been there since our generation was conceived.
It's been programmed so purely into our foundational thoughts that we don't perceive it anymore, yet we are completely reliant on it. Simply, it's our way of life. It's hyper-capitalism, the unnatural enemy of the earth.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
The Devil's Advocate
posted 11/06/09 @ 11:49 AM MST
Alex, when did you turn into such a simpleton? I'm beginning to get the notion that you believe we should all just move into mud huts and be completely self-sustaining. (Continued…)
TooShort
posted 11/06/09 @ 6:40 PM MST
Devils Advocate:
What???
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