Individualism.
Everything that is not created by nature, is made by man. However, men make machines, and machines generate objects by the trillions.
No individual can keep up with this onslaught.
We can change the machines, we can change the materials, and we can change our intentions, but—individually—we can’t address the flow of each and every product.
Without systems of recapture, individual recycling is like a spider web in a hurricane: resilient, but ineffectual.
Industry never built the systems necessary to recapture the material they made and, arguably, they never intended to. Their liability for this “omission” will be decided by the courts, much like it was for tobacco, but since our climate will not allow us to wait for a legal resolution to recycling responsibility, we need to press on bravely to actionable solutions.
We need to change the very materials that constitute the products we use and demand accountability from the companies that sell them. This means not excusing any company that “reduces” its plastic consumption by selling concentrates or reusable bottles, while still producing a net surplus of items made from virgin materials.
If Clorox sells a concentrated pod of solution to refill your Windex bottle using your own water, that’s great—as long as Clorox finds a way to stop generating so much plastic across its ENTIRE product line, and limits what it does produce to reclaimable plastics.
They need to look at the end points of all consumption, not just settle for a limited reduction. If less is being made and thrown away, that’s admirable, but who is minding the net result? If ten million discarded bottles become one million, it’s still one million. We need a solution that makes it closer to “none.”
We’ve had cowboys, and Reaganism, and NIMBYs, Second Amendment rights, and Trump, MacMansions, wall-sized TVs, and Hummers. “I have a Tesla and you don’t,”“I’m better and you’re not,” “I want what I want, I am what I am, my home is my castle, and I have the right to do whatever I want.” It’s the never-ending insecurity of hierarchy and domination, inflicted upon each other by our animal brains. It has to end—or mitigate—or we have to develop enough of a sense of humor about it, that we can make progress in saving the planet from ourselves.
Make these simple pledges:
1) If a company “reduces” the plastic consumption in its products, go “great, now when will you make them completely reclaimable?”
2) Ask them how they will justify a reduction in profit by making less product and supporting the costs of reclamation?
3) Ask them how they see their responsibility to their consumers and the planet as a whole?
4) Ask them what part you play as their customer and how they see that role being significant when compared to the impact of their industrial efforts?
5) Ask them when they are going to discontinue their use of material that is derived from fossil fuels and insist on using only Climate-friendly materials to make their products as a whole?
These are five simple questions that can change the world, because they come from you and you are the reason that product was made in the first place. It’s not a simple process and it has complex dynamics, but—in the end—if you stop buying a product, it will no longer be made. You have to ask companies to focus on more than profit. As long as profit is the only determining factor in all production, then sustainability will never arrive, or some version of it will arrive too late.
We need to rethink profit using sustainable constructs. There are no simple solutions, but the first place to start is to stop pretending the issue doesn’t exist, or that it can be continually and effectively ignored.
Companies need a profit to exist, but all profits are not equal and their relative worth in the marketplace is essential to the functioning of business as a whole. Government does not need to regulate profit, but it does have to create a “level” playing field for all companies to compete. If one company can profit from a lack of sustainability, it puts the others at a disadvantage, perhaps a mortal one. That will serve no one. The health of the economy is paramount to the health of the planet.
We just have to get there through diligence and accountability, but one thing is for certain: we simply can’t get there alone.
Illustration by Paul Antoniades
