Circular economies are not the answer
The pretence that waste can be reused, amounts to waste being ok. It is not.
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15 June 2023
In school, they taught us something about matter. Remember? (It was a long time ago for some of us, so it might have been forgotten). Here’s the simple fact again: Matter is not created or destroyed. Therefore, all this talk about waste (plastic) being biodegradable, compostable, bacteria edible … ultimately just means, it is not disappearing, it is ending up somewhere else.
Circular economies have been seen as the solution to getting waste out of the ecosystem. Renaming waste as material and giving it a second or third life through processes like mechanical recycling for example, is a way to do this. What this does, however, is give the impression that it is okay to create waste. It only takes into account the material being recycled but does not consider many other factors in the process.
Most of us will assume for example that if I were to recycle 1kg of plastic waste mechanically, it will produce 1kg of r-plastic.
We assume a highly productive system: Waste is upcycled into a new reusable product.
What we do not consider, however, is the rest of the matter that is involved in this process. Every action has a reaction. And with every reaction, are straggling leftovers that are forgotten. A study done on conventional mechanical recycling showed that end product yield was only 66%. So, what happens to all the rest of the matter? And what matter is left over?
Carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases, heat, microplastics.
All less than desirable bits and pieces of matter, now still floating around in the atmosphere, stratosphere, our lungs and in our blood.
It is easy to get caught up in the dream that recycling is the answer for plastic waste. But it is just that, a dream. Ignorance is bliss until we start to see plastic particles in fetuses.
To change the narrative, we need to change the thought process. Matter cannot be created or destroyed. Hmm… so, we started with a linear economy. Create, use, dispose. That didn’t work. Then we moved to a circular economy. Create, use, dispose, create (create both good and bad). That’s still got some kinks in it.
So now what?
The solution is hierarchy.
An upside-down pyramid with ‘Reduce’ being right on the top and ‘Dispose’ being right on the bottom. If we don’t use any plastic, we don’t have to deal with disposing of it. We leave matter where it is: underground. We reduce the need for nodding donkeys, sucking up petroleum, we reduce plastic waste running off into the oceans and waterways, we reduce the amount of microplastics that we inhale and ingest daily.
The understanding that matter will not go away, is a great reminder. Everything that you buy, no matter how sustainable, has come from somewhere, and will end up somewhere in some form. That should be a kick in the butt enough to tell you: reduce.
There is no planet B.