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Increasing efficiency is different than lowering total waste. People push for efficiency thinking it will lower total waste, but you can easily increase efficie
by spodek 7y ago
Increasing efficiency is different than lowering total waste. People push for efficiency thinking it will lower total waste, but you can easily increase efficiency and increase total waste.
In the physical environment, total waste is our biggest concern. Our economies are more efficient than ever, but we're also producing more total waste than ever.
We have to focus on lowering total waste. I talked about this in my podcast episode 183: "Reusing and recycling are tactical. Reducing is strategic." https://shows.pippa.io/leadership-and-the-environment/episodes/183-reusing-and-recycling-are-tactical-reducing-is-strategic https://shows.pippa.io/leadership-and-the-environment/episod...
- glbrew 7y ago"Jevon's Paradox"
- lioeters 7y agoThanks for the reference, today I learned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- icebraining 7y agoThey work well side-by-side. If recycling made the overall per-item cost lower, businesses would have been implementing it by themselves a long time ago; paying for the recycling of every piece of plastic is more expensive than creating a new piece and then dumping it, which is why they haven't. So you can get a reduction by mandating full recycling for all plastic (new or previously recycled, of course). The important thing is making sure the producers are paying, rather than getting subsided.