Nat Geo - The End Of Trash

Thought this might provide some good discussion. It's a really interesting article about some really bizarre things that are going on in regards to reusing well, everything. In ways I'd never thought could be although how could I, I'm just a peon. It will take smarter people than myself to say this is good or bad or somewhere in between. The facility in Copenhagen that has a hiking trail and skiing on it is absolutely fascinating though.

I never thought about recycling clothes. Anyway, have at it.

The End Of Trash

For that same half century, environmentalists have been warning of limits to growth. The new “circular economy” movement is different. It’s a collection of strategies—some old, such as reducing, reusing, and recycling, and some new, such as renting rather than owning things—that together are meant to reshape the global economy to eliminate waste. The circular economy doesn’t aim to end growth; it aims to bend how we do things back into harmony with nature, so that growth can continue. “Prosperity in a world of finite resources,” as European environment commissioner Janez Potočnik once put it, in the foreword to an Ellen MacArthur Foundation report. It said the circular economy could save European businesses up to $630 billion a year.

One man who definitely thinks it could happen, and whose work has proved revelatory to many others, is American architect William McDonough. With German chemist Michael Braungart, he wrote the visionary 2002 book Cradle to Cradle, which argues that products and economic processes could be designed such that all waste becomes fodder for something else. Before setting off for Europe, I made a pilgrimage to McDonough’s office in Charlottesville, Virginia. Our conversation ricocheted from his childhood in Tokyo, through Plato, Aristotle, and Buckminster Fuller, to some new compostable blue jeans he was excited about, before I finally managed to ask him the nagging question: Is all this talk of an end to waste just pie in the sky?

“It’s absolutely pie in the sky, no question about it,” McDonough said. “You need pies in the sky to help us go forward. Because remember what Leibniz said.”

I didn’t remember much about that German philosopher.

“Leibniz said, ‘If it is possible, therefore it exists.’ And I’m saying, ‘If we can make it exist, it’s therefore possible.’ ”

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

Awesome.

Thanks for the thread of hope in a sea of doom.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

I am suspicious as hell...this sounds more like a new dress on socialism. No ownership, just renting my arse.

Same old recycling, no truly new process, just the loss of freedom.

Nope, not me

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

Garbage Plasma

The end of trash.

a reply to: scraedtosleep

No problem. Glad you enjoyed it.


a reply to: BlueJacket

Could you elaborate some? It's a long article and been a few days since I read it and I'm not the smartest guys so I'd have to re-read it. I'm not sure exactly what you are getting at. Like I said I need smarter people than myself to try and understand what this all means.

a reply to: BlueJacket

They literally spelled out buying used clothes at thrift shops.

They also talked about processing cotton to make new cloth.

And then they talked about using garments to design new clothes. I'm thinking Pretty in Pink when Andie takes Iona's prom dress and changes its style.

Don't know where you got no ownership from any of that.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

I think its far far away for "The End".. There are so many kind of trash that need a various way if you want to recycle it...

And then, have you searching about the probability of side effect from that recycle activity?

I dunno exactly, but it's possible the recycle activity have side effect. Just like lowering quality, health issues, etc.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

i refuse to recycle with the waste company that picks up our trash.

first they want to charge me for it, then they want me to wash and sort it for them, then they turn around and sell it to some company in Vietnam that lets it sit around forever before they dump it in the sea anyway

a reply to: IcluciaCelceta

That's something I'd wondered about. How much energy is used to recycle things? Is it really worth it? The article is fascinating in some of the creative ways they are recycling trash but does it work in the long run? I don't have those answers.

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

Here we just dump it all into one container and they do all the rest. No sorting by me needed, they do it all. Where it all ends up, well, I doubt it's Vietnam but I really don't know.

a reply to: daskakik

I had the same concerns like BlueJacket. Who do you think will have ownership then? "The people" aka the government aka investors.

No thanks.

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain
If you buy used clothes at a thrift shop, you own them.

If you buy clothes made from fabric made from recovered cotton you own them.

If you buy a garment someone made from scraps you own it.

None of the recycling methods mentioned said anything about the state owning the clothes you buy.

No such thing as trash, just resources that are more expensive to process at the moment than other alternatives in the market. Landfill mining will be huge industry in the near future.

a reply to: daskakik
You focus on clothes but there was talk about general renting instead of owning something. As a universal rule. You do not buy a car and it is yours. You get it for a defined amount of time.

Use this rule for most practical, non personal things you own. What you own is what is on your body and you will never own more, you can have it if the circumstances are right but you wont own it. At your disposal, when you want it.

Without trying to be dramatic, but if I am only allowed to own some defined personal things while I am on this world, I am a big step closer to being a slave.

Do you want to be a slave?

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

But, you are being dramatic. The recycling of clothes is about clothes.

The thread isn't about mortgages or car rentals. Just like everything else, you buy a car and it is yours until you sell it or send it off to the junkyard.

a reply to: daskakik

There is a source in the thread, you might want to read it an then Google some names, too.

Then come back and tell me again it's about thrift shop clothes. Have you even visited the source?

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

You mean the article linked in the OP? It doesn't say anything about the state owning your clothes. Maybe you can point out where it does.

a reply to: daskakik

Did you inform yourself about the German group? Just a hint I'm German and I follow this topic for a while now. I am not the only on in this thread that knows this it seems.

It's not a conspiracy but I watch this group has their fingers in a lot of things. Their idea isn't that bad or evil but the implications that follow from it are.

Have you read Merkels book? You all should if you are interested in similar things. It's out there, everyone can read it.

Are you intentionally obtuse? I never write the state owns the clothes. I write it will own most other things.

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

So, you are taking leaps in logic to fit your CT about some group that has their fingers in a lot of things.

Blue Jacket said that they would own the clothes. You said you had the same concerns. Seems like you really didn't.

Yeah, corporations own a lot of things but that wasn't what the article in the OP was about. You know, the topic of the thread.

a reply to: daskakik


And I added it to the topic because it ties into the topic. There's not a CT, it's just a thing I dislike to see. Stop putting words in my mouth and learn to read and comprehend

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

And what you added had nothing to do with what BlueJacket had posted and it really doesn't have anything to do with the source in the OP.

So, you are german and some german corporation gets under your skin. The ideas presented in the OP are just ideas and they would be carried out by different companies in different countries. Your dislike for that company in that article is neither here nor there.