Today’s Best Read:
Making the Right Choices for a Sustainable Future
…just because that plastic water bottle is recyclable, doesn’t mean that its footprint is eliminated once you diligently place it into a recycle bin.
Happy Earth Day, everyone! Thanks to you lovely readers, I had the opportunity to really research the issues affecting our home planet this year, and by filling in some critical gaps in my education, I’ve finally received the nudge I needed in order to graduate from intention to action.
Here at CP Lab Safety, we’re proud to be among the first U.S. companies to have brought our manufacturing back to the United States (a kind of “reverse off-shoring”). That’s because product transportation is one of the most significant drains on resources, and produces some of the largest carbon footprints on the stratosphere. Each day, products are boxed and loaded into trucks, delivered to boats or planes, carried across state and international borders, relocated onto more trucks, and then fanned out across the country so consumers everywhere can choose from isle upon isle of redundant options. Imagine the gallons of fuel, oceans of exhaust, mountains of packing and packaging material proliferating on a daily basis, and without end. The ability to share the world’s wealth is a wonderful thing, particularly when it means bringing essential goods to deprived communities. But clearly our lust to consume has eclipsed our sense of moderation.
As consumers, we have the power to minimize waste by being more conscientious in our purchasing decisions. Giving preference to locally-made products reduces the necessity of long-distance shipping. Bringing your reusable items with you rather than accepting disposable, single-use products saves valuable resources. Consider the process that brings your favorite disposable products to your fingertips, and then think about how often these items are restocked with a whole new batch of the same products. Daily? Weekly? It’s a relatively modern phenomenon, but the culture of convenience has rendered things like the single-use grocery bag or water bottle a presumed necessity, even though they’re not.
A clever poster circulating the web neatly summarizes this curiosity:
“It’s pretty amazing that our society has reached a point where the effort necessary to extract oil from the ground, ship it to a refinery, turn it into plastic, shape it appropriately, truck it to a store, buy it, and bring it home is considered to be less effort than what it takes to just wash the spoon when you’re done with it.”
In recent years, a growing awareness to the issue has given rise to a boycott on plastic bags, evidenced by an increasing number of major outlets no longer offering them. But as we reported in a previous Earth Day newsletter, switching to paper bags is not the holy grail that we hoped for. Recycling any product is a fairly expensive process, and with each pass through the production mill, components break down at a molecular level, reducing their structural integrity. Reprocessed paper and plastics may have to be combined with newly milled trees or minted polymers to be usable.1
This applies to products across the board. Just because a plastic water bottle is recyclable, doesn’t mean that its footprint is eliminated once you diligently place it into a recycle bin. Aside from the extensive resources consumed to keep our stores initially stocked, those that make it back to the recycling plant still have a finite cycle of rebirth. And that doesn’t account for the vast number that end up in landfills anyway. Clearly, simple recycling isn’t a perfect answer.
So what is the answer? As is often the case in complicated matters, sometimes its simple steps, taken by a large group, that can make the most difference. Convenience has given rise to a broad range of single-use products, but we can choose the situations in which we accept them, and where we can do better. Instead of mindlessly grabbing a new bottle off the shelf, accepting disposable bags at checkout, or purchasing a nine dollar shirt that will fall apart in the wash, it would do the world a good turn if we all invested in more durable, more personal, and less replaceable items. Thinking ahead even saves money long-term; 99 cents per bottle, per day will save you $350 every year (even after you subtract the cost of a reusable bottle and the water to wash it). Living responsibly has more to recommend it than a clean conscience.
To really maximize their environmental impact, some creative companies and consumers are turning to “upcycling” – a privately-driven recycling process where waste products are reassembled into original and unrelated products. Several successful and promising ventures have been sprouting up as a result of the movement. Melissa Richardson of Totem sells a line of bags converted from old advertising banners. Connie Carman does the same with recycled newspapers at Couture Planet. Jake Bronstein has a kickstarter going on right now for a hoodie that comes with an unusual warranty – free mending for life. Companies like FunkyJunk and HipCycle produce everything from clothing to cup holders, exclusively from upcycled materials. And if you’re feeling adventurous, sites like Pinterest, Etsy, YouTube, and of course the ever reliable Google are a treasure map to inspiration.
The reuse wagon still comes with a warning. Although reusable products are better for everyone, potential remains for abuse. Be mindful in your decisions. If a free or inexpensive reusable bag is just going to end up forgotten in your trunk, resist the reflex to accept. Waste is waste, “green” or no, so inflating the apparent demand for it is still donating straight to the local landfill. For those of you in Sales, how about limiting marketing material production to a volume you can reasonably liquidate, to minimize your overrun instead of printing extras? There are lots of small decisions we can make every day that contribute to the greater whole.
Finally, if green incentives just aren’t working, the Mother Nature Network offers the following insight for businesses wishing to reduce the consumption of disposables: penalty often garners greater success than reward. Rather than offering benefits to the already conscientious consumer, perhaps a slight tax on single-use products may be just the thing to startle sleep-shoppers from their stupor?
Jordan Leigh and Michelle Walters
CP Lab Safety
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