We’ve all heard the “recycle, reduce, reuse” mantra.  However, to really combat the current problem of overconsumption and reduce unnecessary waste, this saying should be flipped on its head: “reduce, reuse, recycle.”  Recycling is reactive, and society needs to combine it with a proactive solution, because recycling alone will not “fix” our current consumption problem.  The first step should be reducing initial resource use, which has skyrocketed in recent years.

According to the Sierra Club (via CNN), between the 1950s and the 1990s, the worldwide use of plastic quintupled, and developed countries such as America are leading the way in that consumption.  As an example of this trend, the same article reported that in 2007 one American consumed as many resources as 35 Indians.

Environmental activists are calling attention to these gross numbers in a [mehr...]