planetgreen.discovery.com:
Recycling is great, and the people who make it happens from recycling companies to the end users of recycled materials should get points for being green. But a brand that claims it is helping the environment by manufacturing recyclable products is not doing much more than greenwashing.
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No, the greenwashing-est word around is All Natural.
the solution is easy enough. charge a significant deposit per bottle and provide cash redemption for bottles, etc. if the buyers don't want to get their deposit back buy cashing in their own bottles, then somebody else certainly will. worked well for glass soda bottles for many years, could work now for "disposable" light glass beverage bottles, and will work for plastic bottles too.
lots of stuff that society wants to gather back up, like bottles, batteries, tires, etc, can be collected fairly efficiently though a deposit/redemption system. it's basically funding a recovery/return "reward" up front collected from the buyer (or bottler/manufacturer), who can get it back by turning it in, or let someone else collect the cash reward on the item.
substantial redemption/deposits motivates gathering.
little or no deposit redemption value motivates scattering.
End the plastic habit now.
Yes, totally agree with this article.
People need to change their mindset to: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
For food, I shop at farmers markets twice a week and at my local natural food store. Whole Foods does not count because they are Not Local and are owned by a corporation in Austin, Texas.
I buy as little packaged food as possible. I take my re-usable bags with me everywhere.
I use glass jars and one BPA Free plastic bottle for carrying my tap water.
I never buy soda or milk. I drink only water, tea, real fruit juices, almond milk, and hemp milk.
I reuse my old clothes as cleaning rags. I don't buy paper towels anymore.
I only use Dr. Bronner's and Aubrey Organic Shampoo.
I get free stuff through online sites.
I buy books for under $1 at the local thrift store.
I buy clothes at consignment shops and thrift stores.
I refuse to buy new things unless I absolutely need it.
I save so much money and I have reduced the waste that I produce.
i use only lush solid shampoo. no bottles at all. and also solid soaps and massagebars, so no bottles and no soapy water or oily water transportet.
We have to end the use of standard plastics. We use a lot unnecessarily, and can use PLA for most of our current uses. That which remains should be #1 or #2 and free of phthalates. End polycarbonate use immediately. End plastic bags and other products have have a recycling symbol on them but that cannot be recycled.
The percentage of plastic being recycled as compared to what we produce is DIDDLY "point" SQUAT.
We are polluting the ocean, the food chain, and of course that includes us.
Cradle to Cradle is the only way we'll ever live within nature's laws and stop messing up our planet. As a bumper sticker I saw today said, "Good planets are hard to find".
So would you prefer them to make products that aren't recyclable?
I don't understand your point. If a mfr builds something in a manner that it can be recycled and put back to use isn't that better than sending it to the landfill?
I would prefer they used recyclable materials which have already been recycled at least once, like recycled paper composed of a minimum percent of post-consumer waste.
Green washing and Energy Efficiency Washing
What the US Green Building Council does on a daily basis.
See: http://www.buildinggreen.com/live/index.cfm/2008/9/2/Lies-Damn-Lies-and-Are-LEED-Buildings-iLessi-Efficient-Than-Regular-Buildings
Guess the most recycled material in the world. Is it plastic? Is it aluminum? Is it glass?
No, it's asphalt -- and by some margin.
Post-consumer recycling has a problem: we're not so good about doing it.
We need a waste management paradigm that doesn't depend on consumer sorting.
If glass and aluminum can be mechanically separated, then the remaining organic waste, including plastics, can be processed by anaerobic digestion into oils, sugars, alcohols, and ultimately methane (fuel) and urea (fertilizer). This is recycling we can believe in.
Tax the hell out of unsorted waste.
Like that will solve the problem. Taxes aren't the solution to every problem known to man. Besides that is regressive and will hit poor people hard. There has to be a limit on the tax burn we put on the American people.
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First Posted: 10-15-09 03:39 PM | Updated: 10-15-09 03:53 PM