Reduce, reuse, recycle. In that order.

It donned on me a few years back at a CRD committee meeting, that we were not paying close enough attention to the continuum. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

This came up again a few days back in my recent post about ecommerce, big box, small business and disruption in the retail marketplace. Consumption.

The comments flowing from that post are very encouraging. It inspired a thoughtful dialogue about intention, supporting the people investing in our community, and the impact of Amazon on our towns.

So, what about consumption. That is the elephant in the room. This past summer this story appeared in my newsfeed.

The headline.

“We just went through 2018’s Earth resources in only 7 months”

At the bottom of this post I have added a few of the quotes from the article that highlight our consumption problem. It is a problem. Every year, we are consuming more resources than Earth can sustain. We are spending our children and grandchildren’s inheritance.

That day at the Solid Waste Advisory Committee meeting, CRD staff were highlighting a dilemma. The markets for recycled products were soft and we were stockpiling some of the material that citizens thought was being recycled until market conditions turned. This is very expensive.

But, we have a great recycling program! People are recycling just like we want them to!

We encourage people to separate their materials into a series of blue boxes. And, we ask them to drop it on the curb every couple of weeks. We spend money to promote it.

Manufacturers shift to eco-friendly packaging. Marketers sell it. Conceivably, recyclers pick it up and process it back into new products. Or, at least that is the perception.

Missing a point

My question to CRD staff that day was inspired by an epiphany. “Recycle” is part of a series of actions. It should not be the only action.

“How much are we spending on programs to promote “reuse?” I asked. “How much is our budget to advocate for “reduce?”

My inquiry did not end there. “Should we not first encourage reduction, then reuse, and then as a final step, recycling?”

In the end, there was no good answer. The CRD is all-in on recycling.

It’s good, but is it good enough? Is it good enough in light of the fact that we are crushing the equivalent of 1.7 Earth’s for every year?

So, to add to the complex dilemma of what to do about local business, disruption in retail markets and the vibrancy of our town centres, we have a voracious appetite and we are going leave a very sparse inheritance. If any at all. We have to address consumption. No doubt it will be a challenge with the focus of the modern economic narrative pushing an endless growth agenda.

Finally, if you pop over to the Global Footprint Network, and check out where Canadians rank in the global neighbourhood. You find that while collectively it took us until August 1st to overshoot our annual allotment of resources, Canadians surpassed our “quota” by March 18th.

“We were supposed to make it last until the end of December, but we just used up our entire allotment of Earth’s resources for 2018 in only 7 months. It’s Earth Overshoot Day 2018, and it’s earlier this year than ever before.”

“With 5 months to go before the end of the year, having Earth Overshoot Day on August 1 means that we’re effectively consuming 1.7 Earths.”

“We are using the Earth’s future resources to operate in the present and digging ourselves deeper into ecological debt,” Mathis Wackernagel, CEO of the Global Footprint Network, said in a United Nations Climate Change press release on Tuesday.

“Our economies are running a Ponzi scheme with our planet,” Wackernagel added. “We are using the Earth’s future resources to operate in the present and digging ourselves deeper into ecological debt. It’s time to end this ecological Ponzi scheme and leverage our creativity and ingenuity to create a prosperous future free of fossil fuels and planetary destruction.”