OPINION: Is Recycling Overrated?

By: Savannah King

Is recycling overrated? Overrated could be too harsh of a word, but it could be true. Maybe, overdone and overused are better words to describe recycling.

When we think of living a sustainable lifestyle a lot of people’s minds go straight to recycling. We tend to forget about the other two ways of living a more sustainable lifestyle: Reducing and reusing.

Cami Sockow, the Center for Sustainability Program Coordinator, made a really good point about how to be sustainable, “Before you think about recycling I think that we should all go back to 3^rd grade and think about what came before recycling, right? and that reduces and reuse.”

We are all taught the three r’s of sustainability, but we tend to lump all three together and just think it’s recycling, but in reality, we need to be focusing on reducing and reusing first and using recycling as the last option.

Reducing and reusing should have already been implemented in our daily lives, but now it is imperative that we do so.

See recycling can be expensive and depending on what region you are in certain things can be recycled and certain thing cannot. What happens to the items that cannot? They go to the landfill to just sit with all the other waste.

China has also been accepting our recycled goods for years, but now they are no longer accepting them. So now that China is no longer accepting our recycled goods what do we do?

We need to first reduce our consumption. This generation I feel is built on constantly wanting, having and consuming things. We’ve become very wasteful. If we reduce our consumption, we reduce our waste.

Secondly, everyone needs to find ways to reuse. By reusing we can also reduce waste. We can reuse by using metal straws or strawless lids, donating old items to others, or just by using reusable water bottles.

At the end of the day recycling is not bad, but maybe it is overrated compared to the other r’s of sustainability. Don’t get me wrong practice sustainability anyway one can, but if we can stop waste from entering the world by reducing or reusing wouldn’t we want to do this instead?

So is Recycling overrated? You tell me.

For more information on how you can reduce and reuse click here