Meanwhile the rate of consumption of recyclable and non-recyclable materials alike continues to increase rapidly with no end in sight…..and those that advocate improvements in our recycling methodology just let this go unaddressed.

Over many years now, I haven’t seen much common ground at all between those that advocate recycling with a passion and those that push for genuine sustainability and within it the balance between resource demand and provision that is well within the ability of various resource sectors to cater for that demand in an ongoing manner and with a large safety margin.

Recycling is part of the solution for as long as the solution is being addressed in a holistic manner. But in isolation, it is nothing. In fact, it is worse than nothing: it is playing into the hands of those who just want never-ending growth. By increasing per-unit efficiency, we are effectively facilitating ever-more people being supported by the same resource base.

The ever-increasing demand is cancelling out and overwhelming any per-capita improvements in efficiency that are made….and yet very few greenies of the sort that strongly support recycling have anything at all to do with efforts to stabilise our population or otherwise address this side of the equation.

Unfortunately, it seems that the greenies and the true environmentalists (sustainabilityists) fall into two quite separate camps.