Honeycan Recycling Method 102: It is often not a yes/no (Recyclable/Non) Question - but WHY

"Honey, Can I Recycle This?" Part 2

Follow up lesson from HoneyCan Method 101

We constantly see two bins for our discards: one labeled "trash" and another "recycling." In cities like Barcelona (my second domicile), there are multiple bins. Two are intended for trash—one small round litter bin on the street corner and one large dumpster, lifted and emptied by a truck, which should probably take only bagged trash. Four are for recycling. Paper, Compost, and Glass are fairly obvious (though each produces its own "HoneyCan" questions). Then there are the carters - the same as the Irish and Russian Jewish immigrants to USA cities, who push carts up and down the city streets collecting scrap metal (and electronics).  Those will be the subject of another blog.

The most confusing one for my Ph.D. spouse is the yellow "container" bin, which accepts both metal and plastic packaging. And most of her questions are about plastic.

Often, when she asks me about a plastic container—say, a yogurt cup whose mouth is wider than its base—I consider three explanations.

1) Appeal to Authority. Whatever the Barcelona recycling webpage says, do that. Someone else has already made the decision, and neither of us needs to understand why.

2) Prioritize. What is the worst outcome of getting it wrong? What happens if we mistakenly recycle something that shouldn't be recycled, versus mistakenly throwing away something that could have been?

3) Simplify. If I want her—and millions of other people—to recycle with confidence, perhaps the technically perfect answer doesn't matter very much. Give participants rules that don't discourage them from doing the things with the greatest positive impact.

And... did I say just three explanations?

4) Pontificate. Give her a firehose of information about the history of natural-resource consumption, commodity markets, MRF technology, mining, international trade, and their implications for the future of the planet and human society.

Longtime readers of this blog already know which one I'm naturally inclined to choose. My wife just wants to know where to put the yogurt cup.

The Congressional Quarterly: Duh: Traffic Jams at the Environmental Zoo

Duh: Traffic Jams at the Environmental Zoo

What if the “mystery” of African e-waste is best explained by the wonder of African electronics use?

CQ Researcher recently published Robert Kiener’s report, “Global E-Waste Trade: Can It Be Successfully Reduced and Regulated?.” Robert spent about two hours interviewing me, and he seemed genuinely intrigued by the contrarian view.

The mystery of used electronics appearing in African cities may be best explained by the wonder of Africans using electronics.

Duh.

Accra. Lagos. Nairobi. Cairo. Cape Town. Pretoria.

What is the first thing almost every tourist, researcher, aid worker and white savior encounters after leaving the airport?

Traffic.

Your first hour in Accra should disabuse you of Greenpeace’s image of Agbogbloshie as some remote fishing village where Europeans secretly dump computers. Agbogbloshie is about 20 minutes from the airport—which, in Accra traffic, means it is extremely close to the airport. You could practically walk there.

Those traffic jams are full of automobiles. Automobiles contain steel, aluminum, batteries, catalytic converters, motors, circuit boards and copper wiring harnesses. They wear out. They are repaired. Their parts are harvested. Eventually, they are chopped into scrap.

Automobile scrap is far larger than electronic scrap. Yet when researchers photograph copper wire burning at an African scrapyard, the wire is routinely presented as evidence of imported electronic waste. The Smithsonian’s Adam Minter reported from Agbogbloshie that the burning wire included everything from automobile wiring harnesses to tire threads, that automobiles were being dismantled throughout the scrapyard, and that electronic waste was only a small part of the material being processed there.

The traffic jam creates automobile scrap whether or not a European spreadsheet records it.

But what if automobile scrap is held to the same standard of accounting as Kiener applies to E-Waste?

If it isn’t measured in Europe, did Africa recycle it?