CONFRONTATION OF SOCIETY'S WASTEFUL PRACTICES  

     1. A Framework for Thinking "Waste Reduction"

     A throwaway society is not trained to think in terms of
purchasing less, reusing if possible, and recycling as a last
resort.  In fact, to press a campaign to purchase less is
regarded as contrary to our culture which assumes that wider
sales mean more profits and a growing economy.  Thus, to promote
anti-consumer practices is to do something that is disloyal to
our country.  With knowledge and a change of heart we can change
our attitudes about waste and be ready to address our
wastefulness.  Let's look at three different views about
wastefulness in our society:    
     
      a) "Wastefulness is necessary for an existing society."
We cannot conceive of a society that is not wasteful.   Although
we may try to minimize our wastefulness, we have no intent of
stopping it altogether.  The problem here is that the imperative
to conserve resources is too weak.  Society and the Earth will
collapse around us, if we continue to make half-hearted reforms
while trying to maintain an inherently wasteful and unsustainable
system.

     b) "A condition of wastefulness can be an opportunity for
economic growth."  Some of the waste disposal industry takes this
perspective, because it promotes wastefulness and continued use
of toxic materials.  The services that industry provides depend
upon our continuing our wasteful lifestyles.  Following this
path, ensures the continued erosion of our environment and
implicitly accepts the injustices and destruction that our
wastefulness necessitates.

     c) "Wastefulness can be a temporary phenomenon until a non-
wasteful society is established."  A society that is not wasteful
is possible, desirable, and not novel.  We recognize that
wastefulness is a part of our present culture and that radical
changes will be required to bring us to a non-exploitative and
sustainable society through a change of lifestyles.

=================================================
     Example:  Lutheran College at Decorah, Iowa is beautifully
situated in the rural farming northeastern portion of the state
in the heart of Norwegian-America.  It blends its characteristic
strong academic tradition with an equally strong environmental
sense.  Student committees work on a variety of academic projects
with environmental implications.  The college has developed a
compost project as a result of the resource assessment which
handles a major portion of the organic waste of the campus, thus
returning to the spacious landscape some of what has been drawn
from it.  
================================================

     2. The Broader Picture

    One group desiring an assessment had allowed their garden
and orchard areas to be covered with construction debris because
the grounds manager dreamed of having an artificial hill on which
kids could sled-ride in winter.  Another group's major property
is near a landfill which members sold to the local municipality.
They did so before they realized that contaminated water would
seep from the landfill and would have to be pumped and hauled
away.  In both circumstances, waste problems and imperfect
solutions reared their ugly heads.  In both cases the managers of
the group were partly to blame, and no one knew the full
ramifications of their waste decisions.  

     In studying waste management we learn that we are all partly
to blame for waste-related problems, if for no other reason than
our silence.  Waste, whether domestic or foreign, tears at our
entire social fabric -- and becomes a matter of justice and
sustainability.

     Justice. How are people being affected by our lifestyle?
Are certain groups of people being exploited to support the
excessive lifestyles of other groups?  Are some people being
denied basic needs while others are living with excess?  The
oppression of the poor is an age-old expression of wastefulness,
as the wealthy have wasted resources on luxuries while people
starve.  A walk through any large city vividly illustrates the
injustice of waste, as we see the limousines and skyscrapers with
their penthouse suites contrasting with the trash and poverty on
the streets a few miles away.  The targeting of poor and
powerless communities for waste disposal facilities only adds
fuel to the simmering fires of inequality and lack of proper
allocation of resources.  "Where else should we throw our trash
but in the poorer county?" one state official (a judge) actually
asked me.

     Sustainability. Can our resource use be sustained through
time?  Are we depleting limited resources, thus denying future
generations the ability to use them?  Are our practices
destroying the structure of biological systems that support life?
Are we over-burdening ecosystems with our trash and pollutants?
As we consume ever-increasing portions of the Earth, the
ecosystems and human communities in which we live suffer further
abuse and degradation.  When we convert forests into deserts and
rivers into toxic sewers, we have wasted our children's and
grandchildren's heritage.

     Sustainability and justice cannot be separated.  Every
attack on the Earth harms human communities, either our
contemporaries or our descendants.  Likewise, the injustice of
poverty forces people to deplete their local environments simply
to survive.  It all comes down to two forms of exploitation that
are ultimately one -- exploitation of human beings and
exploitation of the Earth.  And we discover in waste discussion a
sense of powerlessness.  To continue current practices without
challenging them will lead to social discord.  How does our small
action as an organization make a major difference on a waste
problem that is regional or even global, that involves jobs and
quality of life, that is a current matter and yet involves future
generations?

      Wasters experience the dark night of consumer culture.
Wasting is the inability to treat material things with respect,
and allowing this disrespect to become contagious and touch the
lives of every community.  We do not have answers because there
are none or the will power to put them into practice is lacking.
We throw away because we could not refrain from purchase of the
disposable, do not have the power to recycle, or the willingness
to buy an alternative that is a better product.  Wastefulness is
at the heart of and is a measure of the breakdown in the
community that should both take care of itself and take
responsibility for its material resources.

     Why Difficult?  Waste becomes a difficult issue to tackle
for several reasons:

     The Backyard.  Wastefulness is a self-inflicted sickness.
Unfortunately the only sane response is to overcome the addiction
and move out from there.  An approach that is based on merciful
healing rather than on confronting "well" people involves
reevaluating the backyard.  The backyard is a zone of respect for
all people that is to be kept in as natural a condition as
possible even amid the practices of the surrounding culture.  A
Golden Rule of Waste is "I don't put wastes in the backyards of
others that I would not want others to put in mine."  By seeing
waste realistically as an opportunity to stop, change, and grow
we are in tune with the HERE (not in someone else's backyard) and
NOW (not by some future generation) and WE, who work collectively
towards the solution.  We ought not to be mislead by the "not in
my backyard" (NIMBY) approach.  We solve our local waste problem.

<== Back       Next ==>