My Turn at the Microphone

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Permalink Reply by Ivan Sokolov on September 5, 2008 at 22:30

I am a firm believer in the Cradle to Cradle design concepts of Bill McDonough and Michael Braungard who argue that our current style of designing unsustainable goods and then half heartedly trying to recycle them is part of the problem not part of the solution.

However, even as we try and move in that direction, more efficient recycling is still a good temporary idea, seriously hampered by the plastics industry and food manufacturers in NZ.

I'd like to see a campaign to encourage those who deliver their goods to our shops in plastic containers to ensure they only use plastics that can actually be handled by our inadequate recycling industry. It is mighty hard to avoid buying some food products that only come in plastic and the range of containers is wide -- typically stamped anything from 1 to 6. I have lived in the last 8 years in 3 cities in NZ and in none of them has it been possible to recycle anything but two types within this range (and not always the same ones!)

If it were only possible to source containers in this country that the NZ recycling industry can handle, then we'd take a significant leap forward in keeping plastic containers out of land fill sites.

Consumer pressure is probably the only thing that could bring about such a change. Any bright ideas abut how to galvanise it?

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Permalink Reply by Kerry McKenna on September 7, 2008 at 5:33

I'm really disillusioned. I think I had a great idea that I posted on Transition Nation 2020 (the sunflower network) and not one person can comment even though I left a message for the person behind Transition Nation 2020 mentioning that I had had a great idea to support the cause.
The other 7 members of TN2020 have kept mum as well.
Even someone telling me it had been a crap idea would have been better than no response at all.

I am starting to think that Transition stuff is about a whole lot of like minded people doing what they would be doing anyway, oblivious to the fact that for anything to truly take off for the wider community, a bit of hype and passion reaching out to them is necessary.

Running on empty
Kerry McKenna

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Permalink Reply by Ivan Sokolov on September 8, 2008 at 10:41

Hi Kerry,
just read your post about frogs. Seems like a good idea to me. I liked Christoph's suggestion of trying to get a school involved in a project, survey a local area and find out how many frogs there are and what habitats are even available for them -- should be able to get some publicity for findings of such a simple study.
You might well be right about the value of these sorts of networks being only for like minded people already engaged in sufficient of their own projects not to have energy for anything else.
I believe that the reality is only a tiny percentage of people are ready to make the kind of shifts in understanding, awareness, attitudes and behaviour needed to make processes like the Transitions movement really succeed. The rest will only sit up ad take notice when faced with some form of imperative -- disaster, unbearable expense, personal crisis of something.
But that's no reason for concerned people not to keep working away behind the scenes, building our knowledge, skills and experience and above nertworking with each other. Then when and if the shit does hit the fan, there should be a reasonable sized network of people who can step up to the plate and take leadership roles in bringing about the changes that will be essential.
It is easy at some times to feel despairing I know. At such times I find value in surfing the wider web to see all the amazingly positive initiatives happening around the planet to make a difference.

best wishes from Ivan

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Permalink Reply by Linda Watts on September 8, 2008 at 12:11

Evolving our ideas of Sustainability
Monday September 8th ‘08
Rex has emailed the following:
John Peet has brought to my attention a paper just published by the journal Global Environmental Change that may be of some interest to you: "A comparison of The Limits to Growth with 30 years of reality" by Graham M. Turner of CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, GPO Box 284, Canberra City, ACT 2601, Australia
It concludes: "the global system is on an unsustainable trajectory unless there is substantial and rapid reduction in consumptive behaviour, in combination with technological progress". My message is "Keep smiling! There's much more hope in knowing the reality of the challenge ahead than being blindly ignorant of it."

I would add that a third criterion would be a transformation in our social systems eg adversarial politics and religious constructs, linear thought processes i.e. cause and effect events, to a more open systems awareness of life in process….. and the development of an evolutionary spirituality that – in the face of the realisation of the s… we’re in, proactively guides the process of evolving consciousness. While this may include recycling, the real work will be about renewal. (Check out the RNZ podcast of Kim Hill and Michael Braungart

, August 30th) If we are indeed on an unsustainable trajectory…and many of us are likely to be in agreement with this perspective - and if indeed the reality of some soothsayers - who predict the collapse of civilisation as we know it - is just around the corner (or in quantum speak, may already be here), then those of us who understand that our focus must shift from an ego-orientated narcissistic mindset to a global – or even cosmic consciousness that responds to the impulse of ‘for the sake of the whole’, rather than ‘what’s in it for me’, need to work together with a shared intention. This higher shared intention is, I believe, at the human core…..the core of evolutionary spirituality. Transition towns like Christchurch, NZ can model this ‘transition’ in perspective.
Linda Watts

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Permalink Reply by Kerry McKenna on September 10, 2008 at 7:41

Thank you for your suggestions Ivan. It's been really great last 2 days I think I have had 2 feedbacks about the frog thing. Yes to schools involved. It would be great if we could find a teacher or pupil to really take it over actually but will keep thinking about that.

I really appreciate what you are saying about the recycling as well. It would be good to see a doco of a piece of plastic from cradle to grave hehe and there really should be extra taxes put on things that can't be recycled. Wouldn't be hard could just say This tax is to get it back to where it belongs.
That's retarded if other #s than 1 and 2 could be recycled in CHCH. They advertise directly to children how great recycling is here.
It's always really disappointing buying something and finding alot of extra unnecessary packaging inside too. Maybe there should have to be a list on the box of how much unrecyclable packaging it contains, maybe a score.

Yours Kerry McKenna.

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Permalink Reply by Ivan Sokolov on September 10, 2008 at 9:55

Hi Kerry,

A tip I picked up from Bill McDonough -- co-author of Cradele to Cradle -- around packaging:

Wherever possible, undo your product in the shop your buy from and leave them all the packaging to deal with, commenting all the while on how unnecessary it is.

If enough of us started doing this retailers might start pressuring manufacturers not to over package in the first place.

best wishes from Ivan

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