Reasonable Garbage

Garbage is what we don’t value anymore, but the value of things is relative to each individual and to each society; so the concept of garbage is relative as well.  In other words, one person’s waste is another person’s treasure. This phenomenon can also be found in virgin nature; more specifically in the energy, matter and information cycles, which perpetuate the natural balance. So, in nature, the concept of garbage is meaningless.

If we separate the natural environment from the human system, we can see some elements that can be pigeonholed as absolute garbage, without any direct or potentially beneficial properties. The following scheme shows the interaction between the human system and the natural environment from a mechanistic and linear perspective.

Now, if we put ourselves in the picture, interacting with and depending on the environment, we have the following scheme:

In this case, garbage production affects us, because it generates no benefits for the natural-human system. This change of paradigm allows us to consider the application of some aspects of the natural system to the natural-human system, such as the matter cycles, that would reduce waste production and its negative impacts. Recycling is a clear example of this, for it has the following objectives: 1- to create resources from waste, 2- to reduce the volume of waste that goes to the garbage dump, 3- to decrease the extraction of new natural resources. In the current socio-economic paradigm, recycling in Chile is establishing itself as a serious business alternative, for it accomplishes objective 1, but taking the others two objectives only as positive externalities. But if we want to imitate a matter cycling function, such as the one found in nature, we have to focus on the whole system that operates across all the levels of the goods-production process. Unfortunately, our actual system is far from that kind of holistic point of view.

First, we have to choose what goods we want to produce. In a neoliberal economy, we let the market decide according to the desires of the consumers; because in the end, it is more important the satisfaction of our desires than our actual needs. It is what producers of goods are looking for: our desires. We can understand our needs as part of our desires. We can even think of them as our primary and more basic desires, but in an economy that looks to satisfy desires, the more ambitious desires of some people are satisfied while the basic needs of many remain are overlooked. To take the right decisions, we need to understand our needs and desires, and that’s not easy when they are influenced by the marketing system. The objective of marketing, which is highly invasive nowadays, is to influence the consumers to think in one way, and this could prevent us from taking a more rational and personal decision that would allow us to maximize our benefits (in broad terms and not only economic ones) or to use our resources more efficiently.

Then, after we have chosen what goods are to be produced, we have to select the methods of production. In general, the production systems try to minimize the company’s costs, without considering social and environmental costs. They are many examples of industries that comply with the minimum requirements of the environmental laws, and are just on the edge of illegality. Others are already incorporate eco-efficiency process in their line production, because in this way they can reduce costs and use the “green business” image. Finally, only a few industries choose social and environmentally friendly processes only because they are the right thing to do. For many, it will be necessary a law which forces them not to pollute a river or to treat their employees well, for it seems that ethics or common sense alone do not work when the market rules.

It is also an important issue the location of the production, as the more the distance between the product and the consumer,  the more fuel is spent on transportation (i.e. oil), and that brings private benefits but high social costs (the businesses that need transport are benefited, but we all pay by having more air pollution). Other location issues, such as the use of local resources and the global market, are too vast to discuss here.

Once the product arrives to the consumer, we have reached the utilization stage. It is usually only here where the consumer gives value to the goods. What happens before (production system, origin, raw materials), in many cases, is not important, and the consumer does not even question about the origin of the thing that he has bought. What matters is that it fulfills the function for which it is required. When a product is already used and becomes useless, it turns to trash; it no longer valuable and we try to get rid of it as soon as possible. Here we return to the beginning of our discussion, and when the reutilization and recycling solution come to play, but before we applied that solutions we need to change our concept of trash; we have to realize that our garbage can still have value and we must also realize the damage that it can create.

We can’t be concerned about things only when we use them and they are beneficial to us. We must be responsible for the effects that our trash has on the environment. So, we must ask ourselves how our actions affect the social and physical environment to which we belong. At a consumer’s level, we also can take actions to diminish the negatives consequences that the garbage production have on the environment. We, as buyers, have the power of demand, but to use it we have to avoid being manipulated by marketing and to try to take our own rational decisions beyond the individual and temporary benefits.

Robert Petitpas

Forest Engineer

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