Toxic Legacies / Filtering the Truth

Focusing too much on recycling can distract from other important
steps, such as reducing consumption and improving waste
management practices. In 2016, Mon Sun and Remi Strudel, professors
at Boston University, conducted a study on consumption
patterns and reactions to recycling-awareness campaigns.
The findings showed how the positive emotions connected
with recycling were able to overpower the negative emotions
connected to wasting – and as a result, consumers would use
a larger amount of resources when recycling was an option. 27
They concluded that current promotions of recycling may not
emphasise the cost of recycling enough and suggested future
promotions to highlight the economic and environmental cost
of recycling in an attempt to make a conscious effort to prioritise
reduce over recycle.
Whilst recycling and circular thinking are an important part of
reducing waste, conserving resources and protecting the environment,
it is by far not a perfect solution and definitely not to
be applied as a “one-shoe-fits-all” scenario. To improve recycling
rates and reduce waste, the focus needs to be on designing
products that are made to be recycled, as well as developing the
necessary infrastructure that is able to support these processes.
“ ..the word “ recycled ”
on a package generally means
not that a product has been made, at least in part, out
of something that a consumer once bought and then
turned in for recycling, but rather that it has been made
in part with scrap left over from the normal manufacturing
process..
”
William Rathje, Rubbish!, 1992
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