When I was a child, the new 3 Rs were introduced to us in school: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Since then we haven't stopped hearing about recycling. The other two, however -- arguably the more effective of the strategies -- have been much more muted. Recycling has caught on while the others haven't because the only change to lifestyle or mindset necessary is spending an extra few seconds thinking about which garbage can to put waste into. We can keep getting new things, keep using stuff, but with less guilt now, because we can recycle them! Reducing has gained a bit of attention through new technologies which make it fun by necessitating the purchase of new things. Far more fun that simply acquiring less, we reduce by buying new high-efficiency lightbulbs, toilets, windows, washing machines, cars, the list goes on. I'm not arguing that these things have no value, because they certainly are a step in the right direction. But they fail to achieve the shift in thinking and acting ...
a smattering of brain droppings from a self-styled writer