Every day there seems to be a new alarming story about how the world is doomed and we are all going to die. (Actually, the planet will regenerate eventually; it's the Human Race that will have serious problems, but that's another issue.)
The latest is that even though we are recycling, we are not recycling hard enough. There is a tired story still doing the rounds of old folk (40+) getting fed up with young people (the 'we discovered everything' generation) telling them how to recycle. Recycling changes. In 'my day' we collected silver foil and milk bottle tops for the Blue Peter appeal for the Guide Dogs for the Blind. We sent it all into the studio BBC TV Centre, London W12 8QT (every British child of the 80s will remember that address by heart), and the program raised enough money to fund two guide dog puppies, and subsequently followed their training. I actually thought they were blind dogs, not dogs for the blind, and though I have nothing at all against blind humans, I was a little disappointed that my efforts did not go towards helping sightless canines.
Much of the recycling that we put into our bins in Canberra and send to China is not recyclable. China sends it back, which leads to unnecessary pollutants, and it ends up in landfill anyway. China used to be the largest importer of the world's recycling, accepting over 30 million tonnes every year. Until a few years ago, China accepted recyclables with a contamination level of around 5% (contamination being incorrect items mixed in with the material to be recycled). However, the National Sword Policy of January 2018 introduced a strict contamination limit of 0.5%, which meant that much of the world's recycling could not meet this new export standard.
Not all plastic is accepted in recycle bins (only numbers 1, 2, 3, and 5 - the number is printed within a triangle on the container); neither is all glass (if it has been heat-treated; it is unacceptable. Yes, all glass is heat-treated, I would have thought, but...). Cardboard and paper are fine, but shredded paper is not. If you want to protect your identity, it will have to go to landfill; take your secrets to the grave, as it were. Anything smaller than a credit card should not be put into recycle bins - it ends up in the ocean and kills the turtles.
There is also the issue of conflicting information: the ACT Government website states, 'Keeping recyclables clean is important to ensuring they can be processed effectively and are able to be sold in competitive markets. We need people to wipe, scrape or rinse out food and drink before placing containers in the recycling bin.' But, an ABC News article of February 2019 trumpets, 'As opposed to other places in Australia, you do not need to worry about rinsing bottles, jars or yoghurt containers in the ACT. There really are no excuses!'
But there is some good news in all of this. Those small plastic milk bottle tops that you can't put in the recycle bin, can be used to great effect. Envision Hands is a not-for-profit community initiative that uses 3D printing to turn plastic waste into mechanical hands and arms for kids, and those plastic bottle tops are perfect for the job. They are shredded and made into a filament, then fed through a 3D printer, and they turn into fingers. Okay, so I'm sure there's a lot more science to it than that, but the good news is that you can help by taking your (rinsed) bottle caps to a collection point.
Do you ever feel like a plastic bag? No, Katy Perry, I don't. But thanks for asking.
I recently learned that The Lion Foundation is involved with an initiative to recycle the aluminium screw caps on wine bottles. This pleases me greatly, and appeals to my wombling mentality.
I like recycling. I like the feeling that I can contribute something to someone else. When we were kids the Scouts used to collect newspapers. It was my job to bundle them up in orderly piles, tie them up with string and leave them out on the front doorstep.
At school there was a collection of ‘silver paper’ which went to the guide dogs (not the blind dogs as I used to call them), although what they did with it I couldn’t imagine. There was one particular type of chocolate (was it a Penguin or a Kit-Kat?) that had silver paper backed with a greaseproof layer. You could waste hours in the warm kitchen peeling these wrappers apart rather than doing your homework upstairs.
The earnest presenters on Blue Peter were always collecting keys or stamps or foreign coins for various appeals. I can’t remember (if I ever knew) why or where they went – probably to the starving children in Africa; we were all very concerned about them in the early 80s I seem to recall. The motives were less important than the actions themselves. It was and is fun to collect things, and it’s even better that this aimless hoarding has a purpose, even if that purpose is obscure.
After all, we all like to do good deeds; it makes us feel better, and what’s wrong with that? No charity is entirely altruistic. If I can do good by eating chocolate or drinking wine, then so much the better. There’ll be a big box of wine bottle tops turning up at the Lion Foundation soon, and I’m sure we’ll both appreciate it!
So the power crisis is officially over for another year - that's a relief. The power conservers, or eco-Nazis, happily tell you what you should and shouldn't do to be 'green' and love to point the moral finger if you step out of line. It is so easy to feel smug and to criticise others.
Just as the born again anti-smoking brigade make me want to go out and light up a fag although I have never smoked in my life, these people make me want to mix my compost with my plastics, although I have been recycling since we gave bundles of paper to the Scouts and rinsed our milk bottles and put them on our doorsteps as children.
Nothing in this eco-crusade is straight-forward. We grew our own vegetables when we had a garden. We had to irrigate them with water. We now live in an apartment in town - we sold the car to reduce pollution and so had to move closer to the city. There is no garden for vegetables, but there is no car to wash and consume the precious water.
The businesses in town leave their lights on so that the reflections look pretty in the water - and they do. I like to look at them. The streetlights illuminate my late night run or cycle ride, which I do outdoors, on the streets, not in a gym with bright lights, pumping music, and blazing equipment.
I take baths rather than showers. I lie in the bath and relax for hours. If I stood under the shower for that long I would waste a lot more hot water. I already pay exorbitant prices for hot water, which the power company turns off at certain times when they think I don't need it. Will they start dictating when I have to turn my lights out and go to bed? Baths are a simple pleasure, and one for which I am censured.
But I am saving power every day by choosing not to have children. I don't put on extra loads of washing and drying. I don't buy cheap plastic toys and clothing from sweatshops in China that will end in landfills in two weeks when the little darlings have outgrown them. I don't leave the heating on in the house all day because they need to be kept a certain temperature. I don't drive a 4WD to the shops because I have such precious cargo on board that I have a right to guzzle resources and kill anything I come into contact with.
My non-existent children will not grow up to drive cars, burn fuel, fly around the world, and heat and light houses or offices. They will not buy and dispose of umpteen electical gadgets and telecommunication devices. They will not consume food which uses precious resources to produce. So let me have my bath without opprobrium.
My friend calls this backlash against the holier than thou environmental set, 'green fatigue'. It's an apt expression. The escalators in the publc library were turned off to conserve power. This action saves very little power, but it does force the elderly (for that is the largest proportion of library users) to walk up the stairs or plead for assistance to use the lift. The people who did this are the same people who oppose wind farms because they don't look pretty and they make noise.
Meanwhile mothers drive their children to cafes where they spill fluffies down the front of their new clothes. The pitter patter of tiny feet produces great big carbon footprints. And they welcome their friend's babies to the world with cards made from recycled paper and a superior smile because they are being good to the planet.
