Think Outside the Blue Box
by author Antoine Giraud

We are repeatedly told to reduce, reuse, and recycle, but how many of us get hung up on the final R? Reduce, reuse, recycle is not a mantra, it’s a hierarchy–and reducing comes first. According to McDonough, “The best way to reduce any environmental impact is not to recycle more, but to produce and dispose of less.”

If we’re going to alleviate global warming, recycling alone just won’t cut it. We need to make fundamental changes to our lifestyles and consumption patterns. Being eco-friendly doesn’t mean you have to renounce all your world’s possessions or join a hippie commune–all it takes is a little imagination to think outside the blue box.

Reduce

There are many simple ways to put that first R into action and cut back on waste:

• Buy products with little or no packaging, or spend money on good quality items that will last a long time.
• Stay away from the mall.
• Live a simple, uncluttered life; it will benefit your mental well-being as well as the environment.
• Reconnect with the earth and grow your own food in your backyard or community garden.

Reuse

There are also many practical ways to reuse products:

• Buy second-hand goods, or sell your own.
• Use glass jars for food storage and plastic containers to store nonedible items.
• On your next grocery shopping trip, take your plastic bags back to the store and use them again.
• The list is endless–check out the Internet for more ideas. Leave recycling as a last resort.

The Recycling Process

Where does all that stuff in the blue box go after curb pickup? Here’s a rundown.

Paper

1. After sorting, inks are removed with a chemical wash in a large vat.
2. De-inked paper is pulped and pushed through screens to remove contaminants.
3. Pulp may be bleached with hydrogen peroxide, chlorine dioxide, or oxygen.
4. The pulp is mixed with new wood fibre and sprayed onto a wire screen.
5. The resulting sheet is then dried, trimmed, rolled, and shipped out.
   

Plastic

1. At a sorting facility, unusable plastics and contaminants are removed.
2. The plastics are then washed and chopped into flakes.
3. Flakes are dried and then melted in a furnace.
4. Molten plastic is forced through a fine screen to remove contaminants.
5. The plastic is squeezed into long strands, cooled, chopped, and sold.
   

Aluminum Cans

1. Cans are sorted with giant magnets that remove ferrous metals.
2. Sorted cans are condensed into briquettes and shipped to aluminum companies.
3. Condensed cans are shredded, crushed, and burned (to remove labels).
4. The resulting chips are melted down and mixed with virgin aluminum.
5. Molten aluminum is poured into heavy blocks, rolled into sheets, and shipped.
   

Glass

1. At a sorting facility, coloured and clear glasses are separated.
2. Large contaminants are removed by hand, and then the glass is crushed.
3. Magnets, screens, and vacuums remove smaller contaminants.
4. Crushed glass is mixed with raw materials and melted in a furnace.
5. Molten glass is poured into bottle or jar moulds, cooled, and shipped.

Antoine Giraud is a Vancouver writer and editor who avoids the mall like the plague.

Source: alive #310, August 2008