Beginning earlier this month, and lasting until the end of March, Connecticut College (with the help of the American Forest & Paper Association and The Coca-Cola Company — who ensure that bins will be available next to their vending machines) will be competing in RecycleMania, the stated goal of which is “to reduce campus waste disposal and increase campus recycling.”
To recycle is, simply, to make the used reusable. But it is more than this too. Recycling is the assertion that we care about the environment and an assurance that our negative global impact can be absolved, allowing our lives to continue in their current fashion.
The claim of RecycleMania is worth investigation. The competitive increase in consumption (to win we must recycle more, to recycle more we must buy more, etc.) opposes the ideal goal of recycling, which is that we consume less.
In this logic, to measure the health of our environment by the raw quantity of recycled material is something like measuring the health of our bodies by the quantity of medicine consumed.
RecycleMania does not teach us to reduce our impact, but simply to redeem and pacify it. If two months out of the year we — in the spirit of competition and improving our reputation — consciously recycle, we might justify other actions as pre-cancelled: “I threw a bottle in the trash, but last week put thirty cans in the bin…”
Take Connecticut College’s bottled water brand: we must consider how much of our recycling consists of the plastic from these bottles, and compare this to the decreased impact if students used water fountains or filled their mugs from the faucet.
The competitive nature of the program is also troubling. “Connecticut College has a recycling culture that is enhanced during RecycleMania,” said Amy Cabaniss, Environmental Coordinator, on the college’s website. “We started spreading the word about the importance of recycling even earlier this year to make sure we remain a top contender in the competition.”
RecycleMania has nothing to do with environmentalism. The only motivation for spreading the word earlier this year (why not always spread the word?) is to maintain our reputation and outshine the other schools.
Perhaps in the future, young students arriving in September will be instructed to stuff their closets with newspapers and empty cans until the Mania begins.
I am not against recycling. It is a task that requires little work on our part, no more than a trip to the bathroom. Aluminum cans take 96 percent less energy to create from recycled material than to create from virgin material (recycled glass, the opposite end of the spectrum, saves about 21 percent).
My issue is the simple fact that competitive recycling distorts and even injures the underlying cause of recycling itself.
As an alternative, we must reduce the amount of things consumed and increase the proportion of things recycled, so that — in an ideal state — we take in little and give it all back.
Good points, James, but I’d argue that you’re one of the enlightened minority. On campus and in society at large, consumption will always happen. I don’t think anyone is drinking an extra six pack so that they can recycle more and win RecycleMania, nor are any of the organizers advocating that. The goal is to be more responsible with the things that we consume and discard every day of the year. The competition is less about “winning” and more about establishing a social norm – that recycling is easy, convenient, and socially desirable.
So while RecyleMania is raising awareness and building excitement about campus recycling, your message is equally welcome. We should be examining what we consume, why we consume it, and how we can further reduce our impact. The two messages aren’t mutually exclusive!