My waste free journey- Big scale

With my life I want to take a specific journey. I want to work towards a world where we are conscientious of where we stand, understanding our impacts and repercussions to our creations. Though I am still fresh in the journey of my mind, I believe I have enough heart to persist through time. I have the foresight to see far into the future I am working towards. I’ve been observing possibilities, analytically attempting to prove my hypothesis. I have ideas. I see the true natural world around me and the way in which it works together.

To gather up the fallen leaves, to turn that into the nutrients you need, that is invaluable. An infallible system is one that has a use for its outputs. Saying goodbye to our by-products shouldn’t be to simply bury or burn them. We must turn them back to the beginning, thinning the stream of waste, of worst-case-scenario.

In Ontario, they’re trying for Extended Producer Responsibility. Because their familiarity with the waste should increase their ability to deal with it properly. But how do we get them to see the need? Being sustainable should not be more work, if we want it to be accepted by a vast majority. And I’m afraid I don’t have all the answers yet.

But what I do know is the way we’re doing things can’t last much longer. We’d be stronger if we strived for different successes. The concept of triple bottom line is simple yet effective. It brings to light the value of community and environment, creating a more human approach to business. When money is the only bargaining chip, we permit certain actions to occur in order to cut costs. We outsource cheap materials from countries with less environmental regulations, with poorer workers. We produce cheap goods that fall apart after a few uses, with the hope they will keep buying new ones to replace them.

There isn’t much economic sense in producing something with a long life, built with durability and reparability in mind. Designs have served the purpose of planned obsolescence, of quantity over quality.
But when we introduce environment and society as equally important aspects to success, it creates a culture of responsibility and involvement. It’s no longer acceptable to use financial success as the only key player in decision making.

And where do I fit in this emerging landscape? I am working my way up from the end of the lifecycle, from recycling to reducing to reusing. The most impacts can be made in the design phase, in the conscious planning of the complete picture. Responsibility shouldn’t end when the product is bought. And I want to help bridge that gap of cradle to grave, helping figure out how we can return the resources back and continue their usefulness for years to come.