Recycle more say governments placing all blame on us humans they encourage to consume more to keep the economy growing. And when we start recycling a little more and can’t send our waste to China? Then it’s time to blame the recycling industry for not being capable enough. For not dealing with our waste. For stockpiling. For not having a secondary resale industry. For the lack of demand. For the high costs compared to virgin product.
It’s endless. And it’s easy. It’s easy because nobody ends up doing anything. Humans consume, governments blame and recycling plants remain overwhelmed with little profit making capability (depending on the material) and plenty of issues to contend with.
Recycling is excellent for some materials (like glass) and we should do this over and over. But recycling is also energy intensive and doesn’t address a root cause in many circumstances. So many of the products we’re trying to recycle probably shouldn’t exist in the first place but governments have absolutely no idea how to get us out of the hypercapitalism we find ourselves in. There is such a lack of imagination in most places that nobody is asking anyone to consume a little less (stockpiling toilet paper aside).
There IS a positive, sustainable future out there. There are multiple models of it and different ways to get there. We need to vote in governments that are interested in this, get excited and hire people who are creative and can effectively implement new ideas where we don’t rely on growth-on-growth economics and blaming every other industry for our lack of imagination.