How to Recycle Less and Do More
I’m convinced that smart, hardworking people can profit from practicing what many people call the R’s of effective waste management. The R’s aren’t new, but the order of priority is much more important than people realize. Specifically:
- Reduce or redesign (or both) by using less material and resources and producing less waste. This is where you get the biggest net environmental impact — and net profit.
- Reuse whatever you have to use by putting materials and products back into service. This is the second biggest waste-saving and money-saving opportunity, much larger than through recycling.
- Recycle what you can’t reuse by transforming used materials and products into new ones. Recycling is the buzzword that gets people’s attention, but it really is the lowest-priority choice and the slowest payback option.
At my company, Stonyfield Farm, we’ve learned that reducing waste means consuming less and discarding less. And since source reduction, particularly when it comes to packaging, stops waste before it starts, it’s the most economical and ecological choice. What’s exciting to me is how many companies now seem to have finally figured this out. Some — like Wal-Mart, which has received a lot of attention recently for its ambitious plans to reduce its environmental footprint — are companies that I would have never expected to be a part of this conversation when we launched Stonyfield 25 years ago. The fact that they are is creating an extraordinary opportunity to green our economy.
Incorporating reusable materials and equipment into a production operation like ours at Stonyfield is difficult but not impossible. An example of reuse is with the cardboard boxes that our plastic yogurt cups are shipped in. Over a decade ago we found a company that buys them from us — and re-sells them to clothing and auto parts manufacturers to ship their products. Hopefully the boxes will be used many times before they are recycled.
Recycling is almost universally regarded as a virtue. I beg to differ. The act of recycling actually means that we have failed to reduce or reuse. The EPA’s own numbers delineate that failure: Each of us now produces 4.4 pounds of waste each day, nearly twice as much as thirty-five years ago. Consequently, we have to spend enormous amounts of energy and money carting away all of this waste to someplace else, where it will be made into something different — a process that releases still more CO2 into the atmosphere.
What is more, recycling affects only a fraction of solid waste. At best, 5 percent of plastic gets recycled. We do better with aluminum cans, but the recycle rate is still only about 45% percent.
Even when commonly used and supposedly recyclable waste materials are taken to a recycling center, the energy contained in them isn’t necessarily recaptured. Take certain yogurt cups and bottles made of high density polyethylene. Look on their bottoms and you’re likely to see the number 2, meaning they are made of the same base resin. Yet, your municipal recycling plant likely accepts only the bottles. This is because all number 2 plastics are not the same. The number 2 used to make bottles has a different melting point than that used to make wide mouth containers like yogurt cups. Since they are different, they cannot generally be recycled together. Little surprise, then, that so many supposedly recyclable plastic containers end up in landfills.
At Stonyfield, we still recycle, but only as a last resort after we’ve tried to design waste out of the product or process. We’ve been working for many years with a Waltham, Massachusetts-based company, Recycline, that will make toothbrush and razor handles from our used cups.
To me, recycling is an obvious piece of the overall puzzle, but only after all else has failed. It is to waste management what carbon offsetting is to climate change, another issue I’m deeply concerned about. It shouldn’t be seen as the point of entry to environmental responsibility. We must first reduce our impact, our resource demand, our climate footprint — and recycle and offset to make up the difference only when we’ve done all else we can do.
Wal-Mart is far from perfect, and — by the way — the same can be said for any company, my own included. But as the world’s largest company, they are worth watching, for there is no doubt that business will need to be a big part of the solution to our environmental challenges. And since they are obsessed with eliminating cost, they help to validate my belief that going “green” can be highly profitable. As part of its quest to become a green giant, Wal-Mart has pledged to eliminate a quarter of the solid waste currently produced by its U.S. facilities. When the company took an environmental impact team up on its suggestion that Wal-Mart bundle for resale the plastic that it used to send to landfills or incinerators, the company saved $28 million a year. Another $2.4 million of cost savings was lopped off by asking the supplier of its private-label Kid Connection line of toys to eliminate unneeded packaging. Wal-Mart now ships nearly five hundred fewer containers each year, reducing shipping costs and saving 3,800 trees and a million barrels of oil in the bargain.
Indeed, here’s how CEO Lee Scott wants his employees to think about waste: “If we throw it away, we had to buy it first. So we pay twice–once to get it, once to have it taken away. What if we reverse that? What if our suppliers send us less, and everything they send us has value as a recycled product? No waste, and we get paid instead.” Now that’s smart talk.
Gary Hirshberg, the husband of Meg Hirshberg and the father of three teenage yogurt-eaters, is Chairman, President and CE-Yo of Stonyfield Farm, the world’s leading organic yogurt producer, based in Londonderry, New Hampshire. He is also the author of Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World, published in January 2008 by Hyperion Books (NY), which outlines how consumers and businesses can be forces for positive and tangible change.
Copyright © 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
I add another “R”.
After “Reduce”, add “Repair”.
So many things get thrown out when some little thing goes wrong. Part of this is that things are not made with repairability in mind — complicated, injection-molded plastic doesn’t lend itself to being fixed.
But another part of the problem is that things that could be repaired cost more to repair than a new piece of future junk.
I submit that, to a certain extent, it is our duty to future generations to go out of the way to repair things.
If you’re a person who shops for the lowest airfaire, then buys carbon offset credits for the flight, just go ahead and eat the extra cost of repairing something. Do it for the planet, for your children (if you have any), and for future generations.
Redesign is another “R” example. I am an artist and work with many creative people. It has always been the way of artist and designers to use existing materials and redesign them in a functional and/or creative way. I have an opening this weekend of just that type of art.
http://angeliaastyle.wordpress.com
Yup. Repair.
Why, just this morning I fixed a door hinge on a cheap microwave oven, pleased that they don’t have to manufacture another one that consumer society would encourage me to just replace, because it’s cheap.
Recycling is truly the bottom of the R barrell. Turning consumer crap into raw materials to manufacture more consumer crap may sound good to an MBA (who have taken over the world, btw) but like so much we do is profoundly wasteful.
And another “R” still used everywhere else, EXCEPT the United States - REFILL.
In most other industrial countries, refillable glass bottles are still the standard for beverages and milk. They also stll have home delivery of milk - in England, some places still use a type of electric vehicle called a “milk float”.
Recycling is of limited help - the only materials that actually get continuous re-use are corrugated cardboard, aluminum cans, lead-acid batteries and to some extent, steel. For other materials, notably glass and plastic, it is is really just “one-and-a half cycling” it goes into products that are not rectclable, like carpeting.
Big_Money “Why, just this morning I fixed a door hinge on a cheap microwave oven…”
Good on you, Big Money! I’ll bet that’s how you came by that name!
Speaking of microwave ovens, I was thrilled to find an older one in the local freecycle mailing list. They went out and bought a larger one, but I wanted one with a mechanical timer, which doesn’t use “phantom power” when you aren’t using it. Otherwise, you have to unplug the damn things if your electricity is precious, as with solar.
We’re still “on the grid,” but we’re headed to off-grid, precious electricity in the next few years, and it’s nice to have a microwave that won’t be wasting those photon with bright numbers flashing “12:00, 12:00, 12:00…” all day and night.
Thanks Jan.
Yup, the one I fixed has a big analog spring-loaded dial and no buttons. It goes “Ding!”. Uses 0.00 watts for the 23.9 hours a day that we don’t use it. So I’m extra glad to not replace it.
Gary, I was one of your early NH supporters when I lived there in the 80’s. I totally agree with your approach.
BUT — what am I to do with the umpteen quart-sized Stonyfield Yogurt containers in my cupboard? Can’t reuse that many, not in a million years; can’t reduce / do without it; and can’t recycle that type of plastic anywhere within driving distance. And for the little ones, now that they no longer come with tops (which sort of makes sense), the “reuse” potential is nil. (When you figure out some suggestions, print them on the containers.)
For Jan Steinman, two words: power strips. Put the microwave, and everything else of that ilk, on one. It takes one extra millisecond to flip on the power strip when you want to cook, and flip it off again when you’re done. Same for computers and their accessories. If I were handier I’d put switches directly wired into the outlets to do the same thing. I’m not going off the grid, I just have this game to see how few kwh I can use, and it pays the extra cost of green power from the utility.
My husband works in the public recycling world and is very vocal about recycling being the LAST thing that should happen to our stuff.
Also, when buying paper products made of recycled goods, check that it is mostly “post-consumer”-that’s made of stuff we put at the curb, not the extra from the plant, possibly made from virgin material.
Another R “RETHINK”-as in, do I NEED this? Will it make my life better? Is it useful?
Yogurt quart containers: Call around to day cares, scouts and schools and see if they need any for art projects. I’ve punched holes in the bottoms and used as planters during the summer for my window boxes.
I am on the “R”epair bandwagon. With one big exception - “R”eplace old “R”efrigerators. Darned things use half-a-house worth of hydro all by themselves.
I have a neighbor from Germany. She told me that the government made the manufacturer responsible for excess packaging. For example, if you bought a tube of toothpaste at the pharmacy, you could unpackage it and leave the box for the pharmacy to send back to the manufacturer to dispose of. As a result, toothpaste no longer comes in boxes, it has a flat cap so it can stand up on the shelf all by itself! Multiply this by thousands of items, and a lot of packaging could be eliminated.
When I lived in Switzerland, I noticed that past the checkout lanes at the Migros supermarket, there was a long bench, cluttered with boxes and plastic and stuff. This was on an off day.
Then I went in during high shopping hour, and the bench was packed with people (mostly older), stripping all the excess packaging off the stuff they had just bought!
This is what happens when garbage is expensive. In 1992, it cost six francs to dispose of a kitchen-wastebasket-size garbage bag!
Another thing I learned from the Swiss: BYOB. You don’t get a bag with anything you buy anywhere there — not just in grocery stores! It would be great to have this happen in North America.
How about one more R: Redistribute….make sure good stuff finds a new home and share your wealth…..for any of you who have not seen it, TheStoryOfStuff.org is an hilarious 20 min cartoon showing us what happens when we don’t do the R’s…great posts
Just stop buying all their shit.
Hoa binh
I needed my washing machine fixed and the repairman told me I could buy a new one cheaper!
I chose to pay more to repair it. Kept it out of the landfill and saved the materials for a new one. But why would it be cheaper to replace than repair?
There’s something wrong with this picture.
Something else is fishy.
We are told that plastic is cheap. Much cheaper than paper - so plastic instead of paper bags. Plastic instead of glass reusable bottles. (In the old days, children, we took bottles back to the store and got a deposit back, and they reused the bottles.)
I went to buy recycled plastic lumber, which should be even cheaper, since no new oil is needed to produce it. It’s about 4 times more than lumber. Why is this? Are they trying to rip off the environmentally responsible?
Big_Money- If you have an old dehumidifier, that needs replacing also. I finally broke down (the old dehumidifier refused to) last summer and bought a new one that is just about twice as efficient as the old one. And to a couple of other posters, Yes! end Phantom Power loss. Do it now.
A couple of comments - as far as I know, our recycling centers (here in Santa Cruz)do actually recycle Stonyfield yogurt containers (kid-size). That still leaves the peal-off lids and the six-pack packaging, which go into the garbage and the landfill. Also, how does Recycline get the yogurt cups? Stonyfield sells them, a distributor sends them all over the country - how would Stonyfield (or Recycline) get them back?
Finally, how are those cups made anyway? A more detailed description of Stonyfield’s actual waste management program would have helped (I guess that’s in the book??).
Hi to Meg from Josh
Recycling however packaged and necessary is just a fancy way to say that we need to get used to living with junk. Did America lose the world lottery?
I actually hardly buy anything. I don’t like to shop. I like to fix things, and cannot afford new ones.
However, I do realize that some of my appliances (eg., frig) are probably not very efficient.
I need a new furnace - mine is too old to get parts. (There are funds to help low income people pay for fuel, but not to help purchase a new furnace.) The more efficient they are, the more they cost.
The sales rep told me that some people who can well afford an efficient model, will decide that the monetary savings are not worth it compared to just investing their money elsewhere. What about just doing the right thing - especially when you can afford it!
Also, it occurred to me that landlords - slumlords - have no incentive to install efficient systems, so more fuel is used and the tenants pay higher bills.
Seen in a store window: Don’t buy this gizmo and save $67.99!
Which leaves another “R” for Resist. Don’t buy so much in the first place and you save a lot of R’s downstream.
Here’s an interesting little video that puts much into perspective: http://www.storyofstuff.com/
Jan Steinman,
You took the words out of my mouth. Repairing, for me, actually produces a minor “high”. Whip out the glue, soldering gun, screwdriver, hammer, etc. and put something back together. It’s about staving off nature’s entropy and saving a buck at the same time.
My latest victory was the main bake igniter in my oven. $50 part (over-priced), but good as new now.
The problem is that it takes time to repair, and our economy keeps many of us running-in-place 5 days out of 7.
I think I’ve figured out why Recycling gets all the media coverage, not Reduce or Reuse or BYOB (bring your own bag)–it’s the money. There’s a whole lot more money involved in making and producing junk that is thrown out or recycled. Reducing means not buying. Reusing also means not buying. It’s the money.
A big part of successful re-using is sharing.
http://SocialWay.org/ is a site for doing that, sharing stuff. It could use help of promoters and a Java developer or three (open source free software and nonprofit, SocialWay is only about saving the environment, building local community, and making the world better, not making a buck).
Another resource great for the solidarity in cutting back as much as the tips is The Compact - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thecompact/ - go a year (or more) without buying anything new!
benjamin
http://mlncn.com/
Benjamin,
Excellent point. Tools are a good example. Most of middle-america accumulates a garage full of stuff that is unused most of the time. Most of our things are unused most of the time. Why have 50 sledgehammers on a neighborhood block that are only used 1% of the time? Ideally, we’d have community “libraries” of durable goods like tools, which could be checked out for free, and returned.
As Jan Steinman said in his/her first post, Freecycle. Freecycle is a yahoo group for just about anywhere where you offer up stuff for free that you no longer need and ask for stuff you do need by placing a wanted notice.
Google freecycle and find a group near you before you head for the mall. You just might get what you need. And, you could clean out your basement and attic of the stuff you don’t need.
I love your idea, Paul Bramscher! A durable goods library! Have you ever read a book called Looking Backward? The author escapes me at the moment. It was written in the late 1800s, I believe, and it’s about a man who dreams that he lives in a society which has many communally shared resources like that. Cool book.
I must be hanging out in the wrong community. At work, I am the only one I know who even thinks about recycling. (Any unavoidable plastic purchase I make, detergent, for example is recycled without fail.)
We have an office party for every retiree and promotee who leaves, (there’s lots of turnover) and of course, Christmas, and every party comes with dozens of disposable plates and flatware. We probably have between 15 and 20 parties a year. The waste stream is endless in my office. I have my own permanent melamine plate and lexan flatware in my desk drawer, and everyone knows I’m the “eccentric”. Sigh…