Wow, pretty interesting. Not to be a pessimist, but I don't see this happening in the near future. I hope I'm proven wrong.

Dee

My thought after reading Palmer's piece is that it was a first draft -- "thinking out loud" if you will.

From the article:
Since no approach to conservation that relies on harvesting garbage can ever threaten the garbage paradigm, [recyclers] have no way to inspire the public.

The way in which products are designed specifically for waste is simply not on their screen.

Since that time, no new theory or even interpretation has been put forward until today.

I think that's a bit of exaggeration on Palmer's part. There have been new businesses founded on using recycled materials to create something new. I don't remember being able to buy in the '80s reams of recycled paper for my printer or lawn furniture and carpet made of recycled plastic soda pop bottles.

However, I think Palmer is correct in that recycling proponents have failed to make the use of recycled materials more attractive, whether it is by virtue of low raw-materials cost or manufacturing/accounting advantages of using these materials. The lack of demand for many recyclable materials makes it difficult to collect even what could be collected, further minimizing the impact of recycling. Recycling proponents should spend more time in industrial and political arenas to advise in making the use (and re-use) of recycled materials more attractive.

Consider now the enormous waste of designing products to be fragile, breakable, trashy, lightweight and with signature, critically weak parts inside. This practice is part of the strategy called "planned obsolescence". [...] how does that compare to a product that is so well designed for reuse that only a tenth as much raw material ends up passing through the industrial meatgrinder? [...]

For example, the unfortunately classical method of recycling a glass bottle is to destroy its function. As a
container, its function is to contain. [...] The common-sense way that zero waste approaches this reuse is by using the containment function -- by refilling the bottle. All of the value is recaptured and there is no reason to
transport broken glass across the country, remelt it, fill it in a distant factory and ship it back to where it started.

Nice ideas. But they show a theoretical ignorance of business and human behavior. To take Palmer's glass-bottle example, what happens when the bottler discontinues Pepsi Blah due to poor sales but is stuck with thousands of bottles imprinted with a now-defunct brand name? Does the bottler fill the bottles with Orange Crush despite the name painted onto the bottle? How much energy (trucks, rail cars, etc.) is involved in getting Pepsi Blah bottles back to the appropriate bottling plant? What happens when (inevitably) some of those bottles break?

And are we ready for a world in which technological progress is made that much slower by the standardization Palmer recommends? Species adapt by successful mutation. How long would we be without the benefits (low power consumption, greater visibility) of LCD screens if CRT screens had to be perpetuated because that's all that could be re-used? What happens to market competition (with its benefits in price reduction and feature addition) if standardization is king and any new initiative must be accompanied by an entire life cycle of product sale and recycling/disposal?

Don't get me wrong -- on a basic level, I think Palmer is right. But his answer -- just re-use whatever it is -- is simplistic and ignores that re-use has its own costs. As a planet we need to decide if those costs are worth what we save.

My apologies for writing a "book".

the primary problem in that mostly correct evaluation of the current situation is it doesn't take account of the simple fact that producers can only produce what pays the bills + some profit, and consumers only buy what's cheapest .... long lived [ie: high quality] consumer goods will only be bought when there's no alternative .... which is why govt's are legislating cheap incandescent bulbs out of existance

life is sure a conundrum in an "upwardly mobile" consumer society - zero waste is an individual choice

Bill

Consumers don't always buy the cheapest products.

I look for the best item that will function the longest amount of time for its role, whenever possible. Why buy cheap pots and pans when I can find used revereware on ebay for cheaper than new and that was made in a time when quality matters. I expect that the revereware pots and pans I own will be passed on to my grandchildren (my grandmother used some of them to cook for my mother when she was a child).

But you are right, most items are made for the here and now, and how cheaply can they get the job done in five minutes, with no regard to ten minutes from now.

The reuse (without melting down and remaking) of coke bottles has been in effect in other countries (Costa Rica is one of which I have direct experience) for at least 20 years, and probably longer. When I went there for foreign exchange we drank soda from bottles originally manufactured in the 80s. I believe the incentive for not breaking the bottles (on purpose at least) was the much larger deposit charge, perhaps something on the order of 50 cents or a dollar. Which is not unreasonable, considering that you get it back. I think we could benefit from going back to more glass usage, especially with the recent health issues exposed with heat and plastic bottles. Who knows what cancers we'll be getting from drinking all that bottled water.

One last thought: There is a hierarchy to the triangle, reduce, reuse, recycle. First reduce the amount you are using since this does the most good, then reuse what you did end up using since it takes no rework energy, then when you've used as little as possible and reused as much of that as possible, you recycle and use more energy to do so.

Recycling should be the last resort, but many proclaim it as the be-all and end-all of good things. So it is used to cover all manner of excessive usage and single-usage.

Why buy cheap pots and pans when I can find used revereware on ebay for cheaper than new and that was made in a time when quality matters. I expect that the revereware pots and pans I own will be passed on to my grandchildren (my grandmother used some of them to cook for my mother when she was a child).

Good point, but pots and pans are low-tech items with relatively simple functions. I'm not sure I'd want to be using an original Sunbeam "classic" toaster from 1938, with its lack of grounding and very heatable metal cabinet, especially if I had young children around. I accept the relatively short life of some products (usually protective coatings like fabric protectant) in exchange for their reduced toxicity. I'm glad my computer printer is capable of far more than that old daisy-wheel that was built like a tank but used to hammer itself out of alignment every month or so.

I agree that "recycle" is just one leg of the stool. But I think we should be clear about what we gain and what we lose when we choose to reuse instead of recycle.