Extreme recycling and potential ‘sustainable’ solutions

(A response inspired by a letter to Sustainable Staffordshire about the applicability of ‘extreme recycling’ to all sustainability questions)

I perceive the essence of the situation that humanity currently faces as being that we are experiencing and recognising the adverse affects of actions past and current, even those that were supposed to improve human wellbeing, and we are searching for ways to meet our and future generations’ needs and desires within the resources of this planet’s system. To achieve this we would need to ensure that our inputs do not deplete resources faster than can be replenished by the system and our outputs can be immediately used by other parts of the system. You could call this ‘extreme recycling’ but I would call it living sustainably.

We shall only be able to judge the sustainability of any new measure in the fullness of time once it has been tried but, though we cannot continue as we are because of the adverse consequences of doing so, it is often difficult to achieve agreement about what precise measures to implement because one person’s solution can be seen as another’s problem. For example there are people within Staffordshire who broadly welcome the switch away from the use of fossil fuel to renewable energy but do not like the idea of wind farms locally or even anywhere, either because they think them to be unsightly or dangerous to birdlife. As such we are facing situations that past generations would recognise. The Victorian sewerage systems that the UK population still benefits from definitely did help to deal with the scourge of water born disease in the nineteenth century but we are now facing additional problems that were not considered then and therefore, which those human systems were not designed to tackle.

Sustainable Staffordshire and other similar organisation exist to help people be aware of and come to terms with the problems of unsustainable human behaviour and to learn about what others are either proposing to do or trying out. However, we would be unwise, in my opinion, to advocate any one system or product because it is unlikely to be currently applicable to all our members let alone everyone in the wider community. I believe that our best hope is to explore the potential of a wide diversity of solutions.

Paul Newman

March 2007

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