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.

Recap: Spain SETEM's Mobile Social Congress E-Waste Session 2023

Spain

[Update: Now my address is on Youtube. And very impressive Battery Recycling Expert Hans Melin Eric comments on Linkedin here]

Three weeks ago I returned from a strange and wonderful invitation to speak to a conference in Barcelona. Spain's Mobile Social Congress closed with my session on a Friday evening following the end of the larger European Mobile World Congress (MWC) which is the equivalent of Europe's CES if CES was specific to mobile phone technology.

Thanks to an invitation from Claudia Bosch and Sara Dominguez and SETEM, I had a chance to "cross-examen" a documentary they'd shown at a previous conference - 2018's E-LIFE by Ed Scott-Clarke. They showed the one-hour documentary, then gave me alone the stage for the next hour. 

Now I don't know everyone at SETEM, I only know a couple of people who could not have been surprised when I sharply criticized that documentary. I had a number of facts to share, and I used them.

And I beat that thing like a pinata.

As background, I was interviewed by Ed Scott-Clarke, but not used in the documentary.  That's not important. But more importantly, I had flown in Ghana Tech Sector expert Emmanuel Nyaletey - a superb public speaker who grew up very close to Agbobloshie... and Scott-Clarke didn't use him either.

First things first:  Who is SETEM? Here's an English translation of their web page.

We are people who want to change the world. We believe in a culture of international solidarity that is respectful of the dignity of the peoples of the South and aimed at denouncing and eradicating the structural causes of inequalities.

The SETEM Federation was born in 1995 as the result of the association of the SETEM associations of different autonomous communities, each with its own legal entity, but all with a common objective: to raise awareness among the Citizens about North-South inequality and its causes, promoting the personal and collective transformations necessary to achieve a fairer world.

So this progressive, environmentalist organization had a few years ago learned about the E-Waste dumpsite of Agbogbloshie and made several trips to "save the Africans"... and while learning more and more about the place, some of my contacts there realized that something wasn't adding up.  For one, there was never a sea container. No one has ever seen one there, much less "400 to 500 per month". The materials were being collected by young men with push carts from around the city of Accra... just like the ubiquitous African scrap carters that abound on streets of Barcelona, Madrid, and Seville - and the Canary Islands.

During my hour tearing apart Edward Scott-Clarke's documentary, I had another documentary playing behind me without sound - Scrap Metal Men, In the Life, by Alex Wondergam.