It’s common knowledge that given a choice of two tasks, of varying impact, most people in the civilized world will choose to do the easiest, even if the outcome is of little or no importance. Given the choice of walking a mile to your destination, or getting in the car and driving a mile – regardless of the environmental and social impact of cars – most people will choose to drive. Or rather, “choose” to drive.
I put the word “choose” in quotes because it’s not really a choice at all; civilized society conspires to make the option that is of most benefit to the capital economy the most favourable “choice”, even if it means that the “choice” runs counter to what most people would do given a genuine freedom and an absence of persuasive factors (e.g. advertising, social engineering, lack of alternatives) that steer the individual in the direction of the best choice for the economy. Recycling is a serious offender, not because there is anything intrinsically bad about recycling most materials, but because it is presented by society as an environmental “choice”: you can choose to recycle and be “green” or you can choose not to recycle and not be green.
What other choice is there? What about choosing to do any number of things that are substantially more important than recycling; like reducing your primary consumption of goods, repairing what you already have, reusing what others have no need of, bartering or exchanging goods and services, or just giving stuff away because it means the recipients will buy less of that stuff new. And then there is not filling the skies with toxic gases; not pouring millions of gallons of effluent into seas and rivers; not garnishing the biosphere with a cocktail of persistent chemicals then leaving others to sort out the mess later.
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– Thanks to The Sietch Blog for this one.