LeisureLand Community

In the United States of America, there are millions of people participating in recycling activities as facilitated by numerous organizations. The reasons for taking part in some form of recycling range anywhere from getting the deposit back from cans and bottles; to processing used materials into new products for the sake of preventing the waste of potentially useful materials; to saving the Earth’s ecosystem.

Recycling, to an overwhelming majority of people in this country, consists of throwing “away” (into the recycle bin, instead of the garbage can) materials which have performed their original purpose and the user no longer perceives any value, aside from maybe a return of the deposit paid for the item. The recycle bin’s contents are then taken by the owner or a collection service to a processing center where “someone else” will take care of the rest. There are at least three major problems here, though:

1. There is no “away,” only a way. Non-existence is often seen as a quality of “away,” when in reality everything has “a way” it affects its surroundings. With disregard for a world that exists beyond the experiences of an individual, all other individuals and the world they live in are being affected with blind intentions, leading to further misunderstanding and mismanagement.
   
   Example: Whether we throw a meat wrapper or soda can into the garbage can or the recycle bin, by the time it arrives at the processing facility (refuse disposal site, recycling center, etc.) the contents will have fermented with putrefying bacteria, and will give off an odor that is attractive to a variety of flies and several yellow-and-black flying thugs who are not afraid to use their stingers, and can be gaggingly awful to the humans taking care of the cans’ contents. Systems might be built to prevent the humans from experienceing the disgusting and potentially dangerous materials we have thrown “away,” but these systems will undoubtedly include the construction of something, which takes time, energy and resources, all to cope with poorly disposed of garbage.
2. You are someone else, and so am I. Just like “away,” “someone else” becomes a way to push responsibilities off of one’s self without any regard for its effects or even the simple fact that the world (including the experiences of others) also exists outside one’s own experiences.
   
   Example: We “throw away” our paper plate, plastic fork, and glass drink bottle into one of the many bins marked “Recycle” at a festival, and then go on our merry way, unencumbered by those sticky things. Later, the bin is sorted through by hand, the different pieces of our discarded materials finding their ways to the correct bins for recycling. The sauce from your plate has made the drink bottle slippery, and it falls to break into a million little pieces at the feet of Someone Else, who cleans up all the pieces, except the piece that finds its way into another Someone Else’s foot.
3. The actual usefulness of the items recycled is not truly being considered.
   
   Example: Plastic tubs of yogurt, sour cream, ricotta cheese, etc. are tossed into the recycle bin upon finishing the food within. The person “recycling” those plastic tubs then goes out and buys some plastic starter-pots for seedlings, and scoffs the price, not realizing they already had sufficient pots at home, deceivingly called “tubs.”

Are there any solutions to these problems? Yes, indeed there are. The problems we are facing here have entirely to do with awareness (or lack thereof) about the world we live in:

1. The path, or the way from origin to final destination (including effects external to itself) of everything we use needs to be considered. This doesn’t just go for physical materials, but the culture surrounding the use of them. Through examination of these subjects together, one can understand how various materials and objects made from those materials fit into the world, and why they are fitting into the world the way they are. With such an understanding, it is possible to develop values that address issues on a holistic, community minded level. By developing these values, one can reduce the negative impact of their own interactions with the world (whether physical or otherwise), and find ways to increase the efficiency and positive outcome of one’s own choices. In
   changing how efficiently we work with the world, we change how efficiently the world works with us.
   
   Example: The plastic bags on the dispenser roll at the grocery store… you know… the statically clean, thin, clear, 12inx20in membranes most of us put our vegetables, fruits, and bulk items (such as flour or nuts) into before placing them in the shopping cart. These rather large, plentiful bags can be reused many times for the same purpose; but more often than not, they are treated as though they expire after their contents are used, and are thrown “away” to be replaced by another brand-new bag. Yet, in most cases, these bags still appear clean after use and are easily rinsed, dried, and consolidated for the next trip to the store. Even if they get tiny holes in them large items won’t fall through, and if we use these bags until they are not useful for their intended purpose anymore, then a variety of advantages happen:

   a. Reusing bags at the store reduces the demand on the people, energy, and material resources required in manufacturing, distributing, and maintaining the bag dispensers.

   b. By consolidating the used bags and bringing them back to the store for another use, less time is spent at the grocery store walking to and from the dispenser roll and tearing off a fresh bag. Plus, if we reuse the twist-tie (the ones on which we write the name of the item and the product code) from the last time we got that item, then that’s even more time and energy not spent at the grocery store. It is arguable that there is time spent processing bags and twist ties for reuse, but such processing can take place at home where most of us are more comfortable and happy. If the process were to be systemized, the actual amount of time and energy required could be comparable to or even less than what it takes to acquire new bags and tags.

   c. Many stores now give their customers the opportunity to recycle grocery bags by putting them into special bins at the store so they can be reprocessed into another evolution of useful materials. Just like with the resources needed for the dispenser rolls, we can minimize the demand on the resources required to collect and reclaim use of the plastic by maximizing the bags’ use in our own lives, thus increasing the amount of time from creation to reclamation. This can save a lot of resources because recycling, more often than not, does not result in recreating the same item that was recycled, but rather it results in the creation of a different item because the integrity of the original material is no longer valid for the original purpose due to wear from use and reprocessing.

2. The way of abolishing the use of “away” is very similar to identifying and respecting “someone else.” Again, if we examine the paths of the things we use and how they correspond to culture, we can learn a lot about our own interactions with the world. If we can figure out who “someone else” is and how our choices affect their choices, we can manifest positive change in our own lives by affecting positive change in the lives of others. Additionally, if we value the lives of others as well as our own, then we are able to derive a non-egotistic personal gain to the effect of increased happiness, thus efficiency, by promoting the personal happiness of others. We could even directly receive the benefit of valuing the lives of others by those people valuing our own in kind. When someone interacts with the world in these ways, it is possible to awaken the same loving attitude in other people by example. Community is made of individuals, and community affects all individuals.
   
   Example: At the end of the day, on my way back to the parking lot from the entrance of the Oregon Country Fair in 2004 (I think), I was walking behind a mother and her five-year-old daughter. On the ground near some tall grass, the daughter found an entire Peach Pit (a newspaper print multi-page program for the events happening and people performing throughout the duration of the Fair) and picked it up, exclaiming “The Peach Pit! I want to keep the picture on the front!” as she continued walking with the program in her hands. The mother observed this and told her daughter to “take the page that has the picture, and put the rest of the pages back on the ground; someone else will take care of it,” and after a bit of insistance, the daughter followed the instructions. I realized in that moment that I am Someone Else, so I picked up the rest of the pages, at which point the mother became filled with tension and walked away quickly with her daughter.

   If I didn’t pick up those pages, it is very possible that a gust of wind may have later come by to separate the pages from each other and spread them throughout the parking lot, potentially tearing them to create even more pieces of paper strewn about the area. With all of this paper cast about, it may have taken the efforts of several people, or a lot of energy from one person, to clean up the mess.

   The mother obviously didn’t feel good about her decision when faced with the “someone else” she thought she would never have to see (or care about) doing the thing she would never witness or otherwise experience in any way. She literally put more energy into making sure the pages stayed on the ground than it would have taken to pick them up and “throw them away” into a recycle bin where like materials would be consolidated to minimize the amount time and energy spent by people processing its contents. If she took the time to be Someone Else, she would have saved energy by not trying to convince her child to leave the pages on the ground, not being embarrassed about her decision, and not causing other people to divert their own energy into the effort necessary to keep the area clean of debris for the enjoyment of everyone.

3. It’s easy to get locked into thinking that an object can only be used for its original intended purpose, because that is how we most often relate to that object. The object may have many more uses, or it may even seem ludicrous to use that object instead of a different one.
   
   Example: Plastic bags are also more useful than we might think. They can be used to cover a tray of seedlings to keep the moisture from escaping during germination, insulate gaps in a window frame during cold winter months, keep books dry in a backpack on a rainy day, or buffering a fragile item through the mail.

   My family, for instance, has a lot of uses for plastic yogurt tubs (leftover meal containers, ingredient storage, starter pots for plants), the blank sides of printed documents (notepaper, game scores, etc.), scratched CD’s  and potato chip bags (reflects light to keep birds from hanging around or smacking into things), steel cans (lanterns, toilet paper holders, patching holes), and more.

To affect positive change in our views and actions involved in recycling, the following are some of the questions we need to ponder about the object and its contents:

1. How did they come into my control?
   Consider what happened to make them and why, the reasons for their demand from consumers, and how and why they ultimately arrived in your hands.
2. How will I use them?
   Consider what you will do with them first and why, what else you could do with them, and what you could use instead.
3. What will happen with them after they are no longer under my control?
   Consider how and why you will release them, where they will go and what will happen to them after you no longer control them, and what will happen to the world because of them.

Of course, the subject of recycling encompasses more than just plastic, metal and glass; it includes food, water, cloth, carcasses, lawn and garden trimmings, and human excrement, just to name a few. What else can we recycle?