If the intention in sustainability and sustainable packaging selections is firmly focused on recycling, then we’re off focus on, opines Eco-Insights blogger Robert Lilienfeld.
Recycling is not a new phenomenon. From the Sumerians who constructed the initial-at any time cities four,000 a long time ago to modern day Europe and The usa, virtually every civilization that has at any time existed has tried recycling as a way to conserve its sources, and ultimately itself, from disappearing.
But it hasn’t worked as soon as. Perversely, the cause is not simply because folks didn’t try out hard adequate. The fact is, they experimented with as well hard! By focusing so seriously on recycling and not on the primary factors that useful resource availability and environmental problems arose in the first place, societies have regularly skipped the actual possibilities to sustain natural resources and therefore their very own human and monetary resources.
So, let’s be honest. Recycling, for all its benefits, will never by alone avoid or remediate major environmental issues this sort of as weather change, habitat destruction, and loss of biodiversity. It is simply the icing on a really big, really thick, and extremely hefty, cake.
By the way, both the EPA by means of its Sustainable Supplies Management system, and the G-7 in its newest Leadership Recommendations, all concur with this evaluation.
What we truly require to see is political dialogue relating to inhabitants growth and the concurrent boost and changes in intake patterns. Therefore, those of us in the packaging value chain need to work harder to reverse the well-known notion that a much better surroundings begins with significantly less packaging waste.
We also need to show that packaging’s crucial part is to prevent squander of the much better sources utilized to generate, transport and retailer the meals and other items contained inside.
