|
|
||
|
|
|||
|
Zero Waste »
Return to full zero waste vision
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Share your comments below!
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
No single use products. No single-use anything. Like milk bottles and Coke bottles in the olden days, everything gets continually reused. What can’t be reused gets repurposed. What can’t be repurposed gets recycled. Nothing is thrown away.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
Comments (3)
I love this idea. One thing I would add or put an emphasis on is shampoo and conditioner bottles as well as any other cosmetics coming in a plastic container. I often find they are overlooked when people talk about reusing packaging and a great deal of our waste comes from them.
I envision standardized refillable glass containers with metal lids in as many shapes and sizes as needed to meet all of our food packaging needs. Recycling a beer bottle to make another beer bottle is stupid. The same is true for mayonnaise, kim chi, salsa... these foods could all use the same size and type of refillable jar. Soy sauce, hot sauce, liquid aminos etc. could all use the same size and type of bottle. Ketchup and salad dressing also in their own shape and size. There might be 12 different sizes of jars and bottles needed to meet the needs of all the different types of foods that we package. When the jar or bottle is empty, the customer is expected to wash it and put it in the bin. Then it goes to a facility where it is sterilized and delabeled. These clean jars and bottles are sold to food manufacturers where they sterilize them again before filling with food and labeled with a recycled paper label. The jars and bottles are made from sturdy glass that can withstand shipping, similar to the quality of a canning jar. Some foods might use canning jars, but new refillable jars and bottles would be needed to accommodate all the shapes and sizes needed.
I think that this extreme is not necessarily something we should be shooting for. We should work on ways to provide incentives to slowly move away from single-use products i.e. affordable, delivered farm baskets, discounts for bringing reusable grocery bags etc. As soon as we denounce something, the message behind it gets lost. I still love the idea of not having any single use products, but I think its more complicated than that!
Keep in mind that the vision is meant to be the ideal world that we would like to see. Regardless of how difficult it may be to get there, it is important to identify the final state that we want to work towards. In the policy area, we can discuss tactics for working towards the vision (such as discounts for reusable grocery bags, etc.) For this vision area, try to think about the world as it could be regardless of how unlikely or difficult that might seem... then we'll worry about how to get there.
While a world without any single use products might seem improbable today, I believe it is ultimately where we need to head if we are to have a sustained future on this planet. No resource is infinite.
Perhaps a rephrasing of this vision item would help it not feel like denouncing something... Instead of "No single-use products. No single-use anything", maybe the bold text could say "Many lives for every product" or "A world where reusable products are the norm"?