Why Is Recycling Rubbish?
7 Questions to Shatter the Sustainability Echo Chamber
In my pre-smartphone galakei¹ days, a 100-yen compass helped me find my way around Tokyo. I kept one compass in a jacket pocket and another handy at home. One autumn day I set out looking for a garden I’d seen on the map at the train station. I walked for an hour and a half only to find myself wandering in a never-ending industrial estate. Then I realized — the needle in my compass had been fitted incorrectly — what I’d thought was north was actually south. You can trust the 100-yen shop compass for gems like these. From then on, before setting out I checked whether the compass I was using had the red or black needle pointing north.
In this spirit, here I pose seven questions to challenge some of my beliefs that might be utterly wrong.
1) Why is recycling rubbish?
Garbage sorting in Japan is complex and confusing. Many an earnest foreigner has suffered the shameful morning scolding by their local gomi-obaasan (Granny garbage-dictator) for sorting their garbage incorrectly.
It may surprise many to learn just how much of this perfectly presented and separated rubbish is burnt. Japanese policy proudly supports the three Rs, but interpretation of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle varies widely. Does reduce in Japan mean reduce the amount you put into landfill? While it makes sense in this land-scarce country, it contrasts with my interpretation, which is reduce the inputs and the amount of waste you produce. I recently visited an industrial waste incineration plant in Kawasaki city which strengthened my suspicion that the only reason for separating rubbish in Japan is to help out the incineration plants. The wood pallets at the biomass plant I saw were in superb condition, with a good number of potential uses in them before they should be relegated to the chipper. Are we recycling rubbish just to feed the incinerator to generate electricity we call green?
2) What is unsustainable business?
In a Tim Ferriss interview with someone I can no longer remember, they discussed anti-social enterprise, the lesser known dorky brother of the young, handsome social enterprise. This counterpoint reminded me how empty trendy terminology can be. Likewise, the term sustainable business makes me wonder, what does unsustainable business look like and is anyone working on that? The echo chamber answers quickly — it’s the baddies like the petrochemical industry, arms manufacturers, and other organisations conspiring against the well-being of society. Now I am here with open heart and curiosity — how far are the baddies bad? What value are they creating and who are the people behind those bad-guy masks? If they are not creating value in society, which myth does their power rely upon and what can I do to deconstruct it?
3) What are the negative effects on the human body and the environment from eating a predominantly plant-based diet?
I learnt that lowering my negative impacts on the environment could best be achieved by lowering meat and dairy consumption. The movie ‘Cowspiracy’ and various articles in echo-chamber friendly The Guardian confirm this. After experimenting with veganism (easy for a poor student with no money or time for dining out) I settled on being a lone vegetarian; vegetarian in my grocery shopping and bento preparation — a social omnivore if I feel like it. Every day I am literally full of beans and eat huge quantities of soya in different forms — tofu, natto, dried and cooked.
I’ve already experienced some loud knockings from the other side of this echo chamber….
At 1m96 and 141kg, the Revolution Titan told me that soya protein is shit. The paleo diet rejects grains and pulses, while some of the latest food faddists are eating a strictly meat-only diet. I’m eating kilograms of greens, vegetables, beans and cottage cheese and have barely gained 1kg of muscle in four months.
What are the negative effects of my current eating habits? When is eating meat good for the environment? What are the downsides to plant-based diets?
And are there any vegan pro-wrestlers?
4) How is technology part of nature?
In this domain I am ignorant. Tech is low on my list of priorities and I’ve sometimes felt afraid of its unstoppable advance and seeming opposition with nature. Millennia of evolution mean Nature’s intelligence is far superior to our own….but for how long? Is there such a thing as technology–nature divide today? If Rose’s Law is correct, within a decade we’ll have quantum computer technology capable of outperforming “all computers that could possibly be built if you use the entire matter of the universe at your disposal to build the best possible computer any human could ever design, and you give it the length of the universe in time to solve these problems”.
I’ve always believed that humans are part of nature — is it time to recognize that technology is part of us and nature too?
5) Why is the current climate crisis nothing new?
‘Unprecedented climate change’ is a common label for the state of affairs today. But like much ‘news’, I suspect there is little new about it. The Earth has been through multiple climate changes before — some human societies have survived through long-lasting calamities. Many species have become extinct. Looking back through history, is the climate change we face today really an example of a new species of crisis? Which periods of environmental history make worthwhile comparisons and what can we learn from them?
6) Which multinational corporations are creating huge natural capital at global scale?
Large evil profit-driven corporations rule the world with no respect for humans or nature is an opinion reverberating around the left wing’s echo chambers. In a society where businesses ‘are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP” news of positive environmental initiatives is easily dismissed as greenwashing. To challenge this assumption, I’d like to find multinational corporations generating great environmental benefits — or preventing environmental harm — at global scale. Which profit-making organizations are doing this now? Did they start off with this as their mission or did they do a business strategy U-turn? Will the corporations creating natural capital please stand up?
7) How can money buy happiness?
I used to believe that rich people made money from exploitation and doing no good — I felt destined to be a have-not. A few years ago, I set about changing my relationship with money, including repeatedly writing the affirmation, “It is morally acceptable to make good money”. Knowing I can afford a roof over my head, food on my plate, visits to my family and donations to NGOs has dramatically lowered my stress and contributed to my happiness. I want to massively broaden learning opportunities for hundreds or thousands of people from financially disadvantaged backgrounds and develop holistic values-based inter-generational investments. How can I work towards this goal? How can money be earned and used to manifest compassionate values?
By exploring these seven questions, I will be checking the needle in my values compass is facing the right direction. By questioning my assumptions and trying to be a little less wrong, I will be in a better position to chart a course from where I am to day to where I’d like to be in the future. If you have any questions, suggestions, or resources to help me answer any of these questions. please comment.
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1- Galakei: Galapagos keitai = Japanese flip-style phone, capable of emails and photos long before smartphones arrived. Largely endemic to the Japanese market, it has been classified as vulnerable on the IUCN’s red list of threatened species.
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I am grateful to:
Sara and Jenny for reading the first draft and giving me feedback.
James Elms for wrecking sustainability.
Ian Draws 365 for drawing a granny garbage dictator.
