Precycling : The Original Green Idea

Since we have talked about the staggering amount of waste clogging our landfills, it’s time to do something about it BEFORE it gets to the landfill. This is precycling, or preventing consumption-waste items from being part of the recycle chain. Precycling can take place at the industrial, business, or consumer level, and is one of the easiest methods of reducing waste we have. In fact, precycling might be the wave of the future as well, with products engineered to go from use to recycle with no intermediate steps necessary. Let’s talk about precycling!

One Ring To Rule Them All…

Precycling is simply this: buying in bulk to eliminate extra packaging waste, not purchasing or using unnecessary consumption-waste items such as plastic bags, and manufacturing goods to be recyclable as a direct process, instead of our current indirect one. Precycling is a way out of the circle of raw materials and resources to waste products and pollution. Even recyclable products eventually recycle out into a landfill or as waste; all recycling and reuse do is slow down the process. What the proponents of precycling wish to do is open up that circle and leave with a product that can be recycled as the same product or as a different one with the same or greater economic value.
For example, take a regular washing machine. As a unit, it is a durable good that will last several years, but when it wears out, it is turned into scrap metal. What precycle engineering might do would be to engineer and design the washing machine to have easily repaired/replaced parts that would extend the life of the washing machine for decades with only small changes, or to make the washing machine recyclable into another household appliance such as a dryer using as many of the remaining parts as possible. Books can be printed on plastic paper, which is acid free and would last for centuries, or they could be recycled into another form that would also have long use. The concept is to engineer and design our products on the basis of future use and recyclability, not for current use and disposal, thus breaking the cycle of use/ reuse/ recycle/disposal.

One Ring To Bind Them

As a concept, precycling for the average consumer is a no-brainer. The key to long term precycling on a manufacturing level will have to come through economic change. Ever since we reached our current societal level, we have been a consumer-driven economy with the goals of providing food, clothing, and shelter for the masses as cheaply as possible to make the most profit. This was a great idea, and a great deal of wealth has been created by this very concept. Now we are looking forwards into the 21st Century, with a larger population, a service-based economy, and pollution, waste, and air quality becoming more of a problem. Some solutions are a little outside the current box, but with the right economic impetus, precycling can be the primary way we design and engineer and purchase goods in the future. It will depend on the consumer to be pro-active and support manufacturers who are committed to not increasing the amount of waste from their practices. As with all green solutions, the biggest green in the eyes of the industrial complex is the dollar.

So, What Can I Do To Help?

Precycling is one of the easiest things you can do on a day-to-day basis when helping reduce landfill waste, pollution, and improve air quality. For starters, we can :
* Use cloth bags instead of taking the free plastic bags when making purchases. Some stores give a 5 cent credit for not using the bags provided. A nickel saved on each of 1000 trips to the grocery store is $50.00!
* Buy in bulk whenever economically feasible. Continuous use items, like toilet paper, paper towels, ramen noodles (if you are in college) are also cheaper, and this cuts down on consumption-waste packaging.
* Make fewer trips to the store. This cuts down on gas, bags, and ensures that you are shopping for need, not impulse buying for want.
* Avoid catalogs, waste paper items, and junk mail. The internet has everything you can possibly wish for without it having to kill a tree to publish it.
* Bring your own silverware when eating out. This cuts down on plastic ware use, and also scares the heck out of a restaurant manager.
* Try and stay away from one-use disposable items, such as diapers, paper plates, batteries, and lighters.
* When buying recyclable products, look for a ’1′ or a ’2′ on the bottom. These items are most easily recycled.
* Buy products with no packaging or the least amount of packaging possible. Bananas come in their own packages, as do oranges, apples, pears, and watermelons. Eat fruit, go green!

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