Can recycling be an environmental savior? — One year later

Photo from the presentation day.

One year ago, I received an invitation from Earth First Club to talk about recycling in Tallinn, Estonia. Without second thoughts, I happily accepted the invitation as it is my pleasure to talk about things that passionate me and on the 12th of January 2020 (life before COVID-19 🤯 ), an event was organized in Heldeke theatre-bar. The topics we discussed were:

• the importance of recycling
• tips for reducing waste and increase reusing
• how to adopt sustainable behaviors and their principles
• how to sort waste

and the 55 attendants and the organizers left the event wiser and with the willingness to take action!

As currently, we cannot organize public gatherings, I decided to make a small recap of the presentation and share with you some tips regarding recycling and sustainable behaviors. Which habits you have adopted from the following ones? 😍

Recycling sign.

Low impact lifestyle principles

Before starting talking about any topic, it is important to define the principles that shape the way we approach it. In the journey of a sustainable lifestyle, there are some principles that can make the journey more enjoyable. It is like this small enjoyment we feel while traveling and look at the road signs that lead us to our destination (times without GPS and Google maps).

Success Ahead: Road Sign. Photo from Pixabay.

• Be present: Be aware of your consumption choices and make audits. Once you start observing what you buy and what you do every day, you will easily find solutions that fit your needs. To begin with, a great and helpful tool to do that is a consumption journal.
• Be patient with yourself: Changes do not happen overnight. Make one step at a time at your own pace. Sustainable living has several aspects in our daily life. Start from those that fit your needs, cause you the least discomfort in the first place and the transformation process gives you joy and happiness. Aesop’s fable “The hare and the tortoise” teaches us something about patience as a virtue.

Tutle. Photo from Pixabay.

• Do not judge: The strictest judge is our own self. Harsh criticism and self-punishment create anxiety and stress that neither you nor the people around the need (we all have unlimited resources of stress in our lives!). The way you evaluate your efforts affects the way you judge the efforts of others and defines your success or failure of your attempts. You came to life to be unique, not perfect.

“We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly”.

• Be kind: Instead of judging, be gentle and treat yourself with kindness. Set goals that you can achieve and understand that the path is different for each one of us. Acknowledge the moments that you might need to turn back to the previous habits and pay attention to your emotions with a compassionate attitude towards yourself. Praise and reward yourself for your achievements and do the same to others as well. While I started changing habits, I was getting furious seeing my surroundings do not take action as I do so I was getting into conflicts that didn’t benefit any of us. The best way to show that to others is with my example and my advice if they ask for it. Now, I appreciate vegans who fly frequently, recyclers who drive their own vehicles, people who compost and have baths occasionally, etc.
• Acceptance: Accept that things are the way they are in each moment. The available solutions in your community, the time you can devote, the tools you have, and the willingness to adopt something new. The world can change with your behavior’s paradigm and that is enough. Accept and acknowledge that might not all the people around you will be happy with these changes. Did you consider that you might not fit with them anymore? That could be also a possibility.

Acceptance, not tolerance. Photo from Pixabay.

Recycling as a last resort

Even though recycling has been used as a practice before the 1970s, that decade is a crucial point in its history. During the 1970s in America, the aim of recycling transformed as recycling was a practice used to deal with the massive amounts of waste produced during the second half of the 20th century and not as a method to get the most out of materials. As you can see also below, recycling holds one of the lowest positions in the waste hierarchy. For a better understanding of the recycling situation in America, it is highly recommended to watch on Netflix the episode” Recycling Sham” of the Netflix documentary series “Broken”.

The waste hierarchy.

Nevertheless, recycling is advertised as an optimal solution for protecting the environment. I cannot argue that recycling doesn’t have any benefits for resource management and energy savings. However, I see it more as an easy greenwashing technique for making the consumers feel guilt-free and continue consuming in the same way as before, considering that the packages they consume are going to be again part of the production chain and they act responsively. The economy is still based on a linear economy system “Take-Make-Use-Waste” but we cannot take it anymore as it affects negatively the ecosystems and our existence on the planet. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the recent studies of finding microplastics in the placentas of unborn babies are quite alerting and reveal that we need to take action.

3 different economic systems: linear, recycling, and circular economy.

The recycling economy is a transitional stage for achieving circular or even blue economy based business models and there are some tips that can help us increase its positive effects on the recyclability of the materials.

Tips for effective recycling

Recycling is a process that requires some basic knowledge of methods and techniques. Once you apply the following tips you are ready to be a master in recycling! 😉 Looking forward to hearing your favorite recycling tips and don’t hesitate to share them with your friends.

• Get information from the local facility for the materials they accept in their facilities. If you have specific questions for specific types of packaging, pose specific questions. But what if you are not sure how to dispose of the package? In that case, it is recommended to dispose of in general waste than in a recycling bin.
• All the packages that you throw at the packaging containers (plastic, glass, metal, or paper) for recycling need to be clean and dry.

Clean and dry packages for recycling.

• Choose to buy products that are in glass or metal packaging instead of plastic. Glass and metal are infinitely recyclable materials without loss in quality. In other words, their recycling process doesn’t require the use of additional raw material to be performed, unlike plastic.

Plastic disposal.

• In the case of plastic packaging, choose a single material plastic package than composite packaging. Single material packages can be sorted and processed much easier. Specifically for plastic, keep in mind that the number inside the 3 arrows indicate the type of plastic the package is made. Not all types are recyclable. Type 1 and 2 are the most common plastic materials that are accepted from recycling facilities and can be processed. The rest of the types are rarely recycled. In type 7, are included bio-plastic packages too (a bioplastic is made from a plant source compared to traditional plastic which is made from petroleum).

Plastic recycling symbols.

• Avoid composite packaging (e.g. Tetrapak). Tetra paks are turned into different post-consumer products and are needed for their manufacture a constant supply of fresh virgin material (wood, oil, and aluminum).

Tetrapak package. Image by janjf93 from Pixabay.

• Avoid bioplastics. There is no doubt that bioplastics are a great solution for reducing the use of plastic in manufacturing as they are made from plant resources than petroleum. How amazing is that? But there’s a catch…recycling facilities cannot process bioplastics as they need special conditions to break down. Bioplastics need very high heat to biodegrade or compost and this can happen only in industrials composting facilities (your household waste doesn’t end up there).

If it is difficult to dispose of it, don’t buy it.

So, is it all about us and how we consume? Absolutely not! Companies have a great responsibility! Plastic is an essential part of our life, regarding packaging. “A Good Company” carried out an experiment in Sweden to show how dependent we are on plastic.

So, what’s the solution? 🤔 🤔

Here’s the big secret…Let me introduce you to the 5R’s of zero waste that de-plastify our lives and lead us to enjoy the benefits of a sustainable lifestyle. Applying them in daily life, we can adopt a sustainable lifestyle that offers a quality of life for us, the community, and the environment around us as well as give the chance for future generations to enjoy the unique beauty of this planet and its sources. We will discover step by step how to introduce these principles in every aspect of our lives.

The 5 R’s of zero waste pyramid.

• What is the relationship I develop with my waste?
• How I can improve in sorting our waste?
• Is all the effort in vain?
• What steps can further I take?
• Who I can ask?
• What I can do in my community to improve the quality of life?

These are all questions that I had in mind for years in my sustainability journey they motivated me to educate myself on the topic, write about it, inspire the people around me, organize events and build an active and mindful community for sustainable living.