The Ritual of Recycling
December 20th, 2006 by 
Maureen McHugh
(Photo courtesy Bob Yeager)
Amanda Marcote at Pandagon has some interesting things to say about recycling. It’s not that she thinks recycling is bad. In fact, she thinks its very good. But she wonders if recylcing isn’t a way of feeling better about driving your car to work–that people (me included) use it as a salve to our conscience. I am of two minds about recycling. I don’t think it makes a big huge difference, but I do think it teaches us mindfulness. It makes consideration of what we throw out part of our lives. And that, I think, could help lead to a reduction in waste–it’s a ritual in a kind of social religion that says things like global warming and destruction of habitat are bad. But I also wondered if it doesn’t make people feel as if we’ve done something meaningful when we really have barely scratched the surface.
Posted in Bob Y., Daily Life, Maureen, Politics, Pop. Culture, Religion, Science, Technology | 
4 Comments »
December 20th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Quoting http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/massey/massey2004.html
Massey Lectures 2004, “A Short History of Progress”, by Ronald Wright
> Each time history repeats itself, so it’s said,
> the price goes up. The twentieth century was a
> time of runaway growth in human population,
> consumption, and technology, placing a colossal
> load on all natural systems, especially earth,
> air, and water: the very elements of
> life. The most urgent questions of the
> twenty-first century are: where will this growth
> lead? Can it be consolidated or sustained? And
> what kind of world is our present bequeathing to
> our future?
>
> In A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright
> argues that our modern predicament is as old as
> civilization, a 10,000-year experiment we have
> participated in but seldom controlled. Only by
> understanding the patterns of triumph and disaster
> that humanity has repeated around the world since
> the Stone Age, can we recognize the
> experiment’s inherent dangers, and, with
> luck and wisdom, shape its outcome.
More luck than wisdom, I’d say. Yes, recycling is a prayer, an act of contrition, a hope that we be spared the consequences of our natural tendencies.
But why does a minority perceive a grave danger, while the vast majority is content to follow the path of least resistance? And why do I find myself amongst the minority? The majority seems to be happier.
Majority (speaking to the minority): you are no fun at parties.
Minority (replying): yes, but we’re all going to die.
Majority: that may be true, but you’re still no fun at parties.
December 20th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
The thing is, of course, that I can recycle, and take shorter showers (that’s hard. I love me my hot water a lot) and take public transportation, because all of those things are within my personal control. I know they’re getting done, because I’m doing them. I can support organizations that lobby for reduced emissions or the end to destructive logging practices, and assume they’re doing what I give them money to do. But recycling and other mindful practices involve me personally, and I can’t help but think that’s a good thing, even when I know they’re gestures so small as to be infinitessimal.
December 20th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
The people we train to recycle today—the five-year-old loves the trip to the recycling center, made when also going to the doctor’s office—are the people who already will assume that they don’t want things damaged. And they are the ones—as with today’s non-smokers—who will have an answer for the Jim Rogerses of the world.
December 21st, 2006 at 1:24 pm
I really like her site. I wasted a bunch of time yesterday reading there. Laura tells me that it’s one of her regular reads.
What’s particularly interesting to me about her post and the comments that follow is how much it echos and elaborates on the same argruments and issues from Morgan’s post, Smoggy Sunshade.