My mom’s clothes had been sitting in bags in my house for over a year, waiting for me to summon the motivation to sort through them… and do research on how to dispose of them responsibly. Clothes are such an integral part of our lives (and economies) that decisions about what to do with them once you have them are not so simple.
Affordability often comes with a price somewhere in the supply chain. In the case of instant noodles, it could be deforestation for ingredients and oil extraction for packaging long before the noodles hit the store and/or adverse health outcomes long after they hit the stomach. Nevertheless, this invention was an unexpected marvel that buoyed the Japanese economy and still supports disaster relief efforts worldwide.
During our time in Japan, we had the opportunity to meet with government officials, reporters, and residents of Tokyo, all of whom are responding to climate change in different ways. Because Japan has the ability to mitigate its emissions but also must adapt to more severe weather, it was interesting to explore what has been effective (or not) from the standpoint of shifting a hard-to-shift culture.
The final leg of my Climate Lab took me to Japan. I consider Japan the site of my environmental awakening, but there was still plenty to learn on this trip about impacts from the climate crisis and how to be an effective leader while centering the priorities of those facing the worst impacts. This jam-packed week was as fun as it was challenging.
Last year a friend told me he was very excited now that he knew he could take his hard-to-recycle plastic to our local recycling company. I bit my tongue, knowing that it was probably too good to be true. At best, those plastics would end up in a landfill, but I had also heard that chemical recycling might be even worse for the environment.
Knowing the health and climate risks of chemical recycling is one thing, but knowing how to change your own behavior to reduce those risks is another entirely. The plastics “recycling” process is opaque, but so is the process that gets our waste to the facility. This Plastic Free July, I took some time to learn more about where my own plastic waste goes.
Misconceptions abound when it comes to recycling, and a new technology called “chemical recycling” is being positioned as a major win for recycling hard-to-recycle plastics. No matter their intentions for the future, most chemical recycling facilities are currently turning plastics into fuel to be burned, not recycled plastics to replace virgin plastics. Perception is everything in the court of public opinion, and information matters.
After only a week, my July has already had its share of plastic consumption, largely associated with purchases that would otherwise be considered eco-friendly. While we work to reduce the amount of plastic coming into our homes, it’s also important to understand what happens after our plastic waste once we dispose of it. In short: what do “recycling” programs actually do with all this plastic?
It was a frustrating and disappointing week at work, with some losses for public health and climate action. I told my team that “if it were easy, someone would have figured it out already.” That said, I am grateful for the opportunity to figure it out with 15 other leaders from around the world this coming year as part of the Indo-Pacific Leadership Lab.
Once I got around to demolishing the dilapidated fence around our back porch, I knew I had to get rid of it in a responsible way. Landfilling is about as antithetical to “responsible disposal” as I can imagine, but because of the chemicals in pressure treated wood, there aren’t many better alternatives. The real key is making informed choices about whatever replaces it.