Rethinking Disposable

Create, use, toss

Disposable is a classic example of cradle-to-grave thinking, the design philosophy that has dominated much of humankind’s development. We create something, use it for a while, ship it off to the dump when we are done with it and then just get a new one.

But cradle-to-grave thinking has a critical weakness: it assumes the materials we need to create stuff are available in limitless quantities. It assumes that when we need more of something, we can just keep going back to that magnificent well of resources that is Planet Earth for more.

Of course, that is a false and even dangerous premise. A century of cheap fossil fuel-based energy may have lulled us into the complacent belief that there’s no end to the goodies, but things actually do run out.

When the Brunswick Mine near Bathurst was opened in 1964, it sat on one of the largest zinc deposits in the world. Today, it sits on the brink of closure: the ore body is nearly depleted. Just like fossil fuels, zinc is a non-renewable resource.

In a world of limited and non-renewable resources, cradle-to-grave thinking is short-sighted and short term. Yet it dominates our world more than ever. We’ve catapulted far beyond plastic spoons and paper cups to disposable furniture, electronics and more. Things that used to be repairable are today not worth fixing. In my home, a fax/printer/copier that was new just 16 months ago is junk today, because of chronic paper jamming. It is otherwise perfectly functional, but was clearly designed to be discarded not repaired, because I can’t find someone to fix it.

A lesson from nature

Contrast that to the natural world around us, where there is no such thing as waste. In nature, things germinate, hatch or are born. They grow and live. Any products or by-products they generate are used for sustenance by other forms of life. Even when they die, their remains become ingredients for another cycle of life. Everything old becomes new again.

With a successful track record spanning billions of years, nature is a good model for humans to emulate, and that is what authors William McDonough and Michael Braungart propose in their classic book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the way we make things. They suggest that we need to design things so that, at the end of their useful lives, they are not discarded but become ingredients for a next generation of products. They suggest that for a truly sustainable world, we need to eliminate the concept of waste. (Visit www.storyofstuff.com for an excellent eye-opener on the true cost of disposable stuff.)

Disposable leads to depletion

In Hot, Flat and Crowded, author Thomas Friedman calls today’s generation the Grasshopper Generation, because it consumes everything in sight. It’s worth being reminded that such excessive consumption tends not to bode well for the next generation of grasshoppers.

A plastic spoon may just be a plastic spoon, but it is a symptom of a throwaway society where short term convenience trumps long term sustainability. In a world of finite resources, disposable leads to depletion.

Perhaps that’s something to remember the next time you’re tempted to reach for a disposable cup, spoon, stir stick, napkin or anything else. Eliminating the concept of waste is a challenge, but here is a good place to begin: rethink the whole notion of disposable.

Telegraph Journal