Palm | Kelapa Sawit

Before the current economic crisis we had a term that we threw around, “truth in lending.” This term is all well and good, but it makes one wonder if there is truth in other endeavors; in this case I would question the term “truth in recycling.”

When we place our recyclable goods on the curb we have a reasonable expectation that those goods are going end up at a plant that can reuse what we would have otherwise thrown away, our old can of peaches can turn into a new can for peaches and the environmental impact falls solely on the energy needed to make old into new; we also assume that our recycling plants utilize environmentally friendly power sources but that is another story entirely.

Ponder what happens when you actually drive to a plant and spend an additional sum of money to properly dispose of your used consumer electronic products. Of course one would assume that these hazardous products (the chemicals inside computers and cell phone batteries for example are very toxic) would be properly recycled, or at least made less-toxic.

Consider the above images from third world countries that do not possess the means to purchase these products for themselves (therefore they had to come from an outside source). Look at what persons are doing to try and ply a small semblance of sellable goods out of our previously ‘recycled’ electronics.

Scary. Greenwashing utilizes numerous methods towards deceit.

-John O