“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is the battle call of resource management. The idea is that we should try to 1) use less materials, 2) keep using the things we already have longer, and for more functions than originally intended, and 3) as a last resort, recycle the materials we didn’t reduce to start with and couldn’t reuse once we already had them. The broken recycling bin that Elena Goukassian brought in to the repair shop was a perfect if yet a bit sad illustration of some of the problems around this important question. This blue, plastic recycling bin, itself a tool for helping us be kinder to our environment, had itself started deteriorating far too early (I think) for being helpful to this important task. The bin itself didn’t look very old or used, but the plastic itself had just stared ripping apart. Elena showed me how a large part of the plastic had simply come off in her hand, and when I applied just a little bit of stress to it, huge pieces just flaked off and came apart in my hands. It was as if the plastic had gone all brittle, aged prematurely so to speak. I am just guessing now, but I assume it has something to do with unevenness in the material, with faulty production processes and with low quality raw materials. I have often had similar experiences with objects made out of recycled plastics, even though seldom as pronounced as in this case. Also, plastics go brittle with age even when made from high quality “first generation” plastics, it just takes a bit longer.

So how does one apply the 3R’s to a plastic object like Elena’s recycling bucket? Obviously, if she wants to help the environment, she needs a recycling bucket. It is hard to see how she could find a double use for it, reducing either the need for the recycling bucket itself or else for another container she also needs. What else could she possibly use it for if she was at the same time collecting recycling materials in it? The recycling is also a bit hard, proven by the low quality of the plastic in question, which it is my guess originates from the object already having been recycled too many times at it is. If this wonder-material plastic really becomes so useless when recycled a couple of times, can it then really be said to be recyclable? Shouldn’t we rather look for other materials that can really be recycled into something useful? Plastic waste reminds me of another wonder material, that was once the staple of much older civilizations than ours, and that still form distinct geological layers in sites of old settlements. I am talking about pottery shards. In pre-industrial societies, ceramic vessels was very much the same kind of all purpose useful material for storage, food industry and cooking that plastic is for us. It also had some similar qualities and problems. It was cheap enough to produce, very good at holding liquids and keeping food fresh, but often broke and once broken almost impossible to repair again. Pottery also wasn’t suitable for recycling. One couldn’t just grind down the broken ceramics and remould it into new clay vessels. Once fired, the clay is irretrievably changed into a strong, if yet brittle, mineral material. A pot breaks easily, but pottery shards last for thousands of years.

The broken pots of Sumerians, Babylonians and Romans were simply discarded and thrown away, and make no mistake, those ancient civilizations also created such a huge amount of waste that their cities slowly rose several meters on the piles rubbish they themselves created. The difference to our own waste creation, is that the organic and ceramic waste produced in the old was non-toxic to the land, so that the thousands upon thousands of pottery shards building up under an ancient city, simply formed part of the soil, fulfilling the same function as gravel or pebbles would. Our plastic shards, however, which also breaks easily and just like the pottery of Rome, also refuses to break down in nature, is toxic and really not the kind of stuff we want our grandchildren to grow their potatoes on. What to do then, with this endlessly accumulating, in reality un-recyclable, toxic layer of broken plastic building up around us? Reducing seems a hard sell, recycling in the long run not viable, so that leaves re-using. In my imaginary future projection, we will have more and more plastic shards around us, and given their toxicity, less and less natural materials that we could use instead. So we would have to find new uses for the shards of our own broken civilization. Melting them together just produces new plastic of inferior quality, fusing them together likewise, apart from also being toxic for the craftperson doing so, but maybe they could be woven or stitched together?

Elena’s west is an all plastic garment, and as opposed to the many industrial products created from both crude oil and plastic waste, it was hand made using no chemical processes. It is not very warm, not very elegant, and not even very comfortable, but it does fulfil the increasingly important function of reminding us in which direction we are all heading.