Resource Responsibility in the Midst of a Crisis
Fun fact: Wednesday was Global Recycling Day.
In the midst of all the chaos of COVID-19, I know that it may be hard to think about something like recycling. However… as the nation stockpiles canned goods and water bottles, as food establishments shut their dining halls and only offer delivery and takeaway, and as fast-casual restaurants and coffee shops stop all reusable container programs, the sustainability nerd in me can’t help but think about the impact that this pandemic is going to have on the zero waste movement and the circular economy at large.
Last week I attended the Sustainability in Packaging conference in Chicago (bold move, I know) and on the last day, a handful of attendees and I talked about the anticipated ripple effects of the coronavirus in the world of packaging. Here’s what we’re expecting to see:
Increase of single-use items (e.g. water bottles, disposable coffee cups, takeaway containers)
Increase in aluminum cans and frozen food packaging
Increase in online shopping (and therefore e-commerce packaging as well as emissions)
In the last week things have escalated rapidly. We have been advised to participate in aggressive social distancing, to only leave the house when absolutely necessary, and to avoid gathering in groups larger than 10. Restaurants and bars are no longer serving dine-in customers. Grocery stores and big chains like Costco and Target remain open, but with limited inventory for things like water bottles, toilet paper, canned goods, and cleaning supplies. Individuals and families across the nation have stocked up and bunkered down.
Fear and uncertainty are spreading faster than the disease itself.
Underlying this fear is an obsession with 'things that are clean.’ There is already a common misperception that something wrapped in plastic is more sanitary than something that is not. It drives me nuts to see bananas in plastic bags at the grocery store.
Let’s quickly clear something up - disposable does not implicitly mean more sanitary. In fact, when you think about the entire supply chain for that case of water bottles (factory conveyor belt to pallet to truck to loading dock to warehouse to shelf) and all the hands that touched it, you may want to Lysol spray the heck out of it.
While I am not advocating for Starbucks to immediately reinstate their BYO mug program (I’m not that crazy), I do want to take a moment to consider the long-term effects of this growing misperception and fear of reusables. It is understandable to see a spike in disposable culture right now as the world fights to stop the spread of germs, but this is not sustainable in the long run. I hope that once we are past this pandemic, we will see a resurgence of reusable culture. Under normal circumstances, if you really think about it, you have more control over the cleanliness of your own reusable water bottle than you do of that plastic water bottle that has been around the world in 80 days.
As we settle in and prepare for the unknown, I’m offering some helpful tips and reminders for minimizing our environmental impact.
1) Recycle effectively
Make sure that your recyclables are getting into the right streams, in the right ways. Check your municipality’s recycling center rules and regulations to ensure that you aren’t sending them contaminated loads. Remember that most recycling centers don’t accept plastic films (e.g. Ziploc bags, plastic pouches, the clear plastic film from a microwave meal, cling wrap, and plastic bags), but many grocery stores collect them. As always, make sure that your cans, bottles, jars, and containers are cleaned properly before going into your recycling bin. And be sure to separate your cardboard and keep it dry.
When disposable goods are unavoidable, the least we can do is make sure we are responsibly disposing of them. Plastics are not evil. In fact, many plastic goods (like water bottles) can be recycled or repurposed infinitely into new plastic goods. Plastic waste is what we want to avoid. When a plastic bottle isn’t recycled properly and ends up in either a landfill or our waterways, that’s when we’ve got a problem. Now more than ever we need to make sure that we are doing all we can to keep these loops closed.
2) Learn about composting
Did you know that roughly one third of the food produced globally for human consumption is lost or wasted every year? Food waste happens for a variety of reasons at a variety of levels - imperfect produce is rejected by grocery stores, unpurchased food expires in stores and can no longer be sold, and uneaten/unused food and food scraps end up in garbage bins in households across the word.
According to Stop Wasting Food, “Food loss and waste accounts for about 4.4 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) per year. To put this in perspective, if food loss and waste were its own country, it would be the world’s third-largest GHG emitter - surpassed only by China and the United States.”
A simple solution to reducing food waste is to participate in a local composting program. If you can’t compost on your own, check your community gardens and municipal services to find out if pick-up/drop-off composting programs are available in your area. The world might be going up in flames, but we still gotta eat. And where there is food, there is almost always food waste.
3) Buy local
Opt for shopping in local stores instead of buying things online - they are likely to be well-stocked, need the business in these trying times, and are less densely populated than the Shoprites and Targets of the world. (And don’t forget to take your reusable shopping and produce bags!)
Unfortunately, cardboard recycling rates have not grown to match e-commerce sales and shipments. A lack of access to curbside collection combined with inconvenient recycling rules has resulted in only 25% of consumer cardboard being reclaimed across the nation. Without a sufficient supply of recycled cardboard, manufacturers and e-commerce sites will need to source virgin timber once again to meet demands. Not to mention, the rest of that cardboard is going straight to landfill.
We, as consumers, can do our part by properly recycling our cardboard, but also by reducing our reliance on online shopping. And if checking our local stores before firing up the Amazon app can also reduce global emissions, support our community businesses, and still meet our immediate needs, that feels like a no-brainer to me.
I think my biggest fear in the midst of all this chaos is that in trying to solve the crisis at hand, we might screw ourselves over in the long term.
I’d hate for this to go down in history as ‘The Pandemic that Propelled the Plastic Problem.’
If you’re looking for some additional things to keep your mind active, your soul fed, and your spirits high in a time of social isolation, check out these circular lifestyle recommendations:
Clean out your closet and list items on resale sites like ThredUp and Poshmark.
Sharpen your skills in repair! Learn to sew so you can mend that hole in your sweater. Figure out how to fix that wobbly chair at your dining table. Take apart your toaster and put it back together again.
Spend some time developing your low-to-no waste strategy for when things simmer back down. Do some research on bulk grocery stores and packaging free shops near you.
Plant an herb garden so that you can stop letting half-used bunches of parsley rot in the produce drawer of your fridge.
Buy a roll of butcher paper and make your own wrapping paper for birthday and holiday gifts. (Did you know that most wrapping paper is not recyclable because it is often dyed, laminated, or mixed with adhesives and foil?)
These are weird times, y’all. Nobody knows how long this pandemic is going to last. While we can’t control the actions of others or the supply of toilet paper, there are healthy ways for us to cope while putting some good back into the world.
I suppose the silver lining of all this chaos is that the Earth is healing.
The planet has forced us all to take a step back so that it can breathe. It’s under the worst humanitarian circumstances, but air and water pollution in China and Italy have plummeted over the last few weeks and ecosystems are recovering. Let’s take this time to acknowledge the role that we as a species have played in reaching this point and pledge to be better. Future generations are relying on the decisions we make today, tomorrow, and every day going forward.
If you have other comments or recommendations for living more sustainably while in self-isolation, I’d love to hear them!
Sending you all lots of love and light in these crazy, crazy times.
x Nicole