Reduce Reuse...Now What?
What is better for the environment? Action on the part of the individual, or large companies?
It’s a debate I hear regularly. With the increasing amount of public consciousness about the state of the natural world, one can expect to, at some point, engage in a discussion where we argue whether not eschewing plastic water bottles actually does anything while Large Corporations are polluting the earth unchecked. I can see both sides of the debate. On one hand, individuals can and do vote with their wallets. The more people buy tofu and reusable bags, the more companies will be inclined to create meat- and plastic-bag-alternatives. On the other, corporations pollute the earth at a scale that goes orders of magnitude beyond what any one person can do. It seems wildly unfair that individuals should feel pressured to change their actions when cruise ships regularly dump their garbage directly into the sea.1
There is one player, however, that does not ever get called into question. I admit that this is because I have engaged in this dialogue almost exclusively with individuals who live in either the US or Canada. That player is local government.
This past fall, we embarked on a road trip through North America. We started in Canada and drove south. The destination was the southern tip of Mexico, possibly further.
Right away, responsible waste management became difficult. We would recycle bottles and cans in public recycling bins, but receptacles for cardboard and plastic were less prevalent. We would drive with cans rolling around the floor of our van while we scouted for public recycling. Composting our food scraps was impossible.
Driving through Arizona, I encountered my first “no recycle” sign. It said, “No Glass”.
The recycling options got worse in New Mexico. Even when staying in an Airbnb, there was just one bin for everything. No recycling of any kind.
Once we got into Mexico, recycling was basically nonexistent. You can return your beer bottles to the convenience store for a bottle deposit, but other than that, everything goes to the landfill.
We drove the length of the country, staying in big cities and little towns. We bought less cans.
One morning, I woke up early to take a sunrise walk on the beach in Tulum. It is probably one of the most picture-perfect beaches I have ever seen; a view of turquoise water unbroken by buoys, boats, or any other obstruction. As I walked, I picked up the pieces of plastic that had washed up overnight. A large shard of a yellow bowl. An old perfume bottle. A child’s flip-flop. I noticed that every beach club had an employee or two raking up the seaweed and plastic and carrying it away, leaving a pristine beach so vacationers wouldn’t have to worry about the polluted state of their world while they lounged outdoors.
On the ferry to Cozumel, the TV advised us to take care of our oceans. Having spent over a month in Mexico, the advertisement made me angry; I had not seen a recycling bin in my entire drive across the length of the country.
The trip taught me something about myself. It taught me that no matter how much environmentalists extoll the virtue of recycling and responsible waste management, I will still throw all my bottles and cans in the trash if there is no other option. As will everyone else. It’s not exactly a surprising revelation, but it removes the onus of environmental stewardship from the individual. It’s very easy to say that the more people recycle and reduce their waste, the less trash will end up in the ocean. But if putting recyclables into the right bins so they go to the municipal recycling depot isn’t the absolute easiest thing in the world, most people won’t do it. In my house share in Seattle, we recycled and composted three quarters of our waste to the point that we had the smallest municipal garbage can size, despite living in a household of three people. While my housemates and I were proud of our responsible waste management, our actions were almost entirely facilitated by the wonderful waste infrastructure of Seattle. If we lived in a more rural area, a poorer area, a different state, could we have done it?
In developed, urban portions of the United States and Canada, individuals have the option to choose. We can recycle a large portion of our waste. Some cities even provide municipal composting. But outside of that world, even in rural portions of the States, individuals often have no choice. If you had to drive your recycling into the next town over to get any of your waste recycled, would you? What if you didn’t have a car?
This is not to say that we are not responsible for our own actions, but rather to point out the importance of municipal waste management. When recycling and composting is easy to do, more people will do it, even if they don’t put environmental activism high on their priority list. In the urban centers I have lived, it seemed so obvious I almost forgot about it; cardboard, glass, aluminum, and some plastics could be recycled, food scraps were composted for me, and I could feel good with my small plastic garbage output. I’m sure that a huge portion of Seattle residents don’t exactly identify as environmental activists, but just throw their cans in the recycling bin because that’s the local expectation. So this year, when that debate about whose responsibility it is to be a steward of the environment rolls around, let’s talk about how individuals can work with their municipality to make good waste management habits accessible to more people. Let’s shed the dichotomy of individual action vs. large corporate waste management, because the culture of responsible waste management belongs to everyone. And when the collective culture trends towards recycling and composting, big corporations will do the same.
