Toxic Legacies / Filtering the Truth
The concept of recycling has gained immense popularity as a sustainable approach to waste pollution and is embraced as a potential solution to our escalating environmental crisis. However, not all recycling practices – especially when it comes to plastic – are necessarily environmentally friendly. In many cases, claims to recyclability are merely greenwashing, a marketing strategy used by companies to position themselves as environ- mentally conscious without implementing actual changes in their production practices. My master project aims to investigate the greenwashing behind recycling and how the concept of recycling can tend to justify the production of waste in a consumer-based system.
The concept of recycling has gained immense popularity as a sustainable approach to waste pollution and is embraced as a potential solution to our escalating environmental crisis. However, not all recycling practices – especially when it comes to plastic – are necessarily environmentally friendly. In many cases, claims to recyclability are merely greenwashing, a marketing strategy used by companies to position themselves as environ- mentally conscious without implementing actual changes in their production practices.
My master project aims to investigate the greenwashing behind recycling and how the concept of recycling can tend to justify the production of waste in a consumer-based system.
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The output – visualised in the following graphs – immediately
shows the presence of many chemicals, to which comparatively,
nicotine is a small concern. In fact in contrast to the other
chemicals, there is so little nicotine present in the materials
that it would have to be specifically sought for, as the minimal
amounts do not make it clearly identifiable from the rest. What
does clearly show, are numerous other chemicals and additives,
intentionally added to cigarettes to enhance flavour and
properties of both tobacco and its smoke. 54 Chemicals such as
acetone, benzene, toluene and various alkanes are relatively
inexpensive and easily flammable – used to regulate and enhance
the combustion of tobacco. Derivatives of siloxane are
used to moisturise and soften the effects of smoke, and the
arsenic otherwise used in rat poison, finds its way into the
cigarette through pesticides used in tobacco farming. Working
with used cigarette butts from all kinds of companies,
makes it impossible to assign specific chemicals and their
amount to a specific brand and consequently also my further
processing of the material – however all of the chemicals listed
above were clearly identifiable in all of the results.
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