Waste Management — Re-Re-Re-Repeat!

The single most important topic on Earth — and you probably didn’t think of it today; until now! Do your duty: save the environment!

Photo by Ravin Rau on Unsplash

Which is your RE?

Have you ever thought about how many words begin with a “re…”? And how many of them are, in fact, very positive words?

The actors in the REcycling industry definitely have!

You have learned that you must REduce — REuse — REcycle; and in that order, to leave the smallest environmental footprint after you.

• Reduce: Simply use less of everything possible. Buy only what you need, not three cucumbers because they are on sale, and then you end up throwing away the two. Do not use excessive amounts of things, such as half a bottle of shampoo for one shower, if a smaller amount would suffice.
  The rich part of the world is wasting a lot, simply because that is cheap enough to not break the bank.
  But you are better than that?! Think with your brain rather than your wallet!

• Reuse: A lot of things can actually be used more times than people normally do. No need to throw away the slightly worn nice T-shirt and then buy a less nice but new T-shirt for gardening.
  Why not use the one you have instead of throwing that one away? And give away things that can still be used, or sell them instead of just scrapping them. All kinds of toys, tools, and building parts — a lot can be valuable to others.
  You would be surprised to see what others actually will be happy to get, even though you yourself consider it worthless.

• Recycle: When something really doesn’t make sense to use anymore, because it is too worn or broken, or too much — you have more than you need and nobody wants it, and you cannot find any other purpose for it.
  But it contains glass, metal, or other precious materials that will be much more environmentally friendly to melt into some new products than it would be to mine and prepare exactly the same materials from scratch — while depositing your old things in a landfill somewhere, for humanity to suffer from in the centuries to come.

Many more REs exist! Take a look at this list and think about what you could do.

Repurpose

I can only recommend taking a look at all the many books and websites that tell about what you can do with old carton rolls from toilet paper or whatever. Instead of scrapping such things, you could probably often just use them for a new purpose.

It counts even for your old computer that still works perfectly fine but where the manufacturer has decided to stop supporting it (thereby trying to force you into buying a new one).

Such an old Apple iMac, for instance, with its expensive components, nice screen and still being fully functional, could be repurposed for another operating system, such as Linux — and through this simple move, it will have years of additional life left in it. If you don’t need it yourself, give it to someone, who can then avoid buying a new computer.

Do not simply accept the manufacturers’ greed and carelessness — decide for yourself and expand the life of something by finding new uses for things.

Think about this: Every year you can use something longer than it was originally meant for, will reduce the pollution in the world that year — and it will postpone the production of new products. If this happens in a large scale, the total production of computers, in this example — which are polluting a lot during their entire lifecycle — will be reduced, and many precious raw materials saved for better uses.

Repair

It would be logical to also add a REpair somewhere in that list, as almost everything we buy today in the industrialized world will be used briefly, and when something breaks, even just a tiny thing like a button falling off a shirt, it will be trashed.

How hard can it be to put a button on a shirt? Or change the electrical cable in a lamp?

Many such small repairs were common in the old days, which are not that old, actually — the habit of throwing away everything is fairly new, and I believe that it is related to the flood of cheap goods coming out of partly the plastic revolution, partly the movement of almost all production to China.

When a new thing costs less than a spare part, it really seems pointless to try repairing the old thing, but consider the total cost, not just how it will set back your bank account today — there is also a day tomorrow when we will all pay for today’s thoughtlessness.

Refill

Another strange thing in the commercial world is that a refill package of something quite often costs more than the original packaging. And you then pay extra for less. A glass of marmalade may be filled with 750 g of the fruity-sweet spread, while a refill package is a thin plastic package with just 700 g in it — and at a higher price.

In general, it is a bit shocking to see how advanced packaging materials that could probably last for decades, if not centuries, are being used a single time only, for a few weeks or even days. It may be due to easy transportation, sellability, hygiene, or something else, but still — why not use the minimum amount of materials for packaging, when this can be utilized only one time — and then make a good and solid packaging with proper refill options for the situations where this is suitable?

An industrialized collection, cleaning, and refilling, used and known already for milk bottles, beer bottles, and a few other things, could probably become more widespread if there was an economic incentive for it for all parties. But somehow the manufacturers of marmalade do not like the idea of collecting and recycling the marmalade glasses — they like to keep buying new ones instead.

Consumers do not know what to do with all these glasses, so they throw them away.

A strange detail can at times be observed: It happens that a manufacturer of something like mustard or other products sellable in amounts that fit into a drinking glass or the like, actually buys a lot of nicely designed drinking glasses, the same types as you could buy in the shops without mustard in them, and then these glasses are filled with mustard and sold — often at prices lower than what you would need to pay for the glass alone.

But what do people then do with these fine glasses? Do they keep them and drink from them? No, they throw them away and buy some others to drink from!

We have got used to considering packaging as garbage, no matter how nice it is.

Refrain

Actually, the waste management business would most often use the word “eliminate” instead, but I like words starting with “Re…” :)

To refrain from buying something in the first place — or to refrain from producing it — or refrain from mining for the materials needed for producing it — will leave the smallest possible footprint, actually having a zero impact.

Some simple examples from a household:

• Refrain from buying a new smartphone each year. No words are needed here, it really is an idiotic thing to do, from which you gain nothing.

• Refrain from buying anything that has several layers of packaging materials on it, such as a tube of toothpaste put in a box that is then wrapped in plastic. Wouldn’t the tube alone be enough?

• Refrain from buying new plastic bags for your garbage — use instead the packaging you already got from your other shopping, or carry the things by hand or in a bucket to the garbage container.
  Many people actually buy a garbage bag in which they put the packaging bags from various devices, and then they carry the bag full of bags to the garbage container. Sounds silly when thinking over it again, doesn’t it?

Redesign

Again, the waste management business likes a different word: “ecodesign”. I am not against that, but the main thing is to take another look at how everything is constructed, including the packaging, and then seek to reduce the number of materials used, increase their separability and ease of environmental-friendly disposal, and try to increase their durability as well, in every case where that makes any sense.

Every design change that can lower the footprint must be considered.

You, as a consumer, can help to make this happen by preferring such products that have been designed with the smallest possible footprint in mind.

Remember

You may of course find that everything is to be put into a daily schedule, and that will ensure the continuity of it all. But then you have a party — or go on vacation — or do something that you are not usually doing, and the processes you normally follow are set aside.

You need mechanisms in your life that can help you remember doing all that is good — also in unusual situations. There are now apps that will reward you for sorting your garbage — if you use such one, take a party as an opportunity to earn extra money!

If you are on vacation, make a small game of it each evening, when you are back in the hotel room, by counting and giving yourself points for how many times during the day you managed to select the least bad option, such as buying a beer in a bottle for recycling instead of a beer can, or choosing the restaurant that looked more friendly to the environment (by having several garbage containers for recycling, a menu without endangered species, or whatever you could learn about this restaurant). See if you can increase the number day by day, being more creative in the different ways you may help the environment, and earn more points — and if you travel with others, you can compete — who gets the most points?

Could you think of other ways that could help you do as many REs as possible every day? I mean, help you keep waste management on your mind every day — and do your duty to the environment?