Recycling and macroeconomics...

I was thinking about the apparent global economy collapse after seeing some truly scare-mongering headlines in the NZ Herald the other day. I don’t think things are quite as bad as some of the more worked up commentators like to think, but I’m half inclined to say it might be a good thing if some significant parts of the current western economic model should fail. I almost think that the global economy could be course correcting for the glut of over-consumption which has slowly been established as a cultural norm in our society.

Remember when we were younger and there weren’t quite so many choices? Maybe only four brands of soap or something like. Was it so bad? Well the level of choice afforded to us now is unfortunately built on the back of removing such choices from the people in developing nations where much of our manufacturing is carried out. They live in poverty, working their arses off for next to nothing so that we can have whole chain stores full of cheap t-shirts, and plastic crap that falls apart mere weeks after being gifted to a loved one on their special day?! I mean, really?! Really?

So, ‘what’s this got to do with recycling?’ I hear you ask [humour me]. Recycling is one way for us to have a positive impact on both our environment and our consumption habits, and consequently on the lives of those worldwide somehow connected to us by our consumption choices. Recycling, in a broader sense, can encapsulate something as simple as making sure we don’t send reusable components of various goods – including packaging, like tin cans, cardboard boxes etc – needlessly to landfills, to choosing to use second-hand goods (op-shopping is great fun and can make for a cool road trip!), through to repurposing goods that have ceased to be used for their original purpose (e.g. instead of using Glad-Wrap, or new plastic bags to carry my lunches I reuse empty bread bags instead).

Tying back to my original thought above, the more we can recycle, repurpose, and reuse, the less unnecessary ‘stuff’ we are causing to exist in the world (demand drives supply – in some economic theories anyway), and across a large population of people these decisions can have a very real impact on the global economy and ultimately the lives of those on whom we depend to keep our way of life going.

And on a completely spurious note, I think I’ll end this relatively brief and poorly formed musing with a poem I wrote a number of years ago (twelve to be precise!) which has very little to do with the serious topic above, excepting that it uses the metaphor of recycling to describe heartbreak (how much poetry is derived from some form of emotional suffering??):

Recycle

She took my heart and stapled it
to the wall of her hallway

Like some tacky ornamental moose head
without the horns.

They’ll wonder if it’s fake, though it did
live once.

Soon she’ll forget it’s there
glimpsed at occasionally, no fond remembrance

Gone with the next inorganic rubbish collection.