recycling - what to do

By now you've probably heard that China stopped taking the world's garbage about a year ago.  And that is a good thing. 

 Glass and aluminum have not been affected, but China is no longer accepting plastics.

 https://www.wired.com/story/the-worlds-recycling-is-in-chaos-heres-what-has-to-happen/?BottomRelatedStories_Sections_5

 Perspective

 I'd like to take a BIG step back and repeat a bold statement I made for over 10 years - since I interned in Hamburg Germany with Dr. Braungart at EPEA (Cradle-to-Cradle originator):   There is no such thing as recycling.  Only pure steel and Nylon 66 can withstand repeated recycling cycles without losing their inherent structure.  All other recycled materials need to have something (usually toxic chemicals) added to refurbish them into something useful and durable.  So that 'thing' you buy made out of recycled plastic bottles had a whole bunch of yuk added to them to make them durable, stable and useful in their second life.
Don't get me wrong, recycling is better than throwing it into the landfill.  But it's not better than reusing it, re purposing it, or best of all not buying it in the first place! 

 There are many waste reduction strategies out there:  reuse, upcycle, repair, etc.  But the DfD = Design for Disassembly and the latest phenom of 'right to repair' are two of the best.  More on these in a future blog.

 One of the key principles of cradle-to-cradle (TM) is waste=food. In other words the output (waste) of one process is the input (food) for another process.  C2C
calls them 'technical nutrients'.  And they say that we need to eliminate the concept of waste - not just 'waste'.  We are the only species that has this thing called 'waste.  

 By China not being the world's dumping ground for plastics and other waste, we will be forced to reckon with our whole supply chain that generates this waste. Incinerating the waste is a very poor solution.  The further upstream we go (to initial design and our belief systems), the higher likelihood that we may eliminate our waste stream altogether.  

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