At this point, most people understand that recycling is a hoax, or, at the very least, that its effectiveness has been dramatically overstated by lobbyists and big corporations. I won’t discuss the underlying issues of recycling here, there are endless articles and documentaries on the topic. Rather, I’d like to talk about an issue I have with the cycle itself.
Instead of thinking of recycling as a recurring, circular process, think about it as a hierarchy of increasing importance. “Recycling” is actually the least important step. If we aim reuse the things that we consume, recycling becomes less relevant. If we set our sights on reducing our consumption, we can short the circuit and break out of the cycle entirely. This is such a difficult pill to swallow, and despite what we say, our actions indicate that most of us are not willing to make this sacrifice. The language we use is important, and I think that referring to recycling as a cyclical process gives it an aura of endlessness futility where no progress can be made, when in fact there is a path forward by emphasizing reusing and reducing. Obviously there is so much more to this that will have to happen for us to even begin to address climate change, but this is a small area where some of us do have agency.