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Legion. An amalgamated journal.
  • About Legion
    "I do not know whether mine is a profession, or a trade, or what not. It is not yet learned, and in every instance has been practised before being studied .... It is not one but legion." —Henry David Thoreau, to the Secretary of the Harvard College Class of 1837, in response to an inquiry on his employment.

    At Legion, we reserve the right to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, and criticise after dinner, just as we have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. Legion is an organ of the Matinicus Syndicate, of which more here.
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The 4th ‘R’

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Redeem!

At least, redemption seems to be the idea behind this latest scheme to get more Americans recycling: RecycleBank.  It’s a simple enough concept: people need a little incentive to separate those cans and bottles.  So give ’em points that they can redeem for rewards:

Put your recyclables in an electronically tagged bin for pickup by a truck, which weighs how much you are recycling–and transmits the data to a web site. By the time you’ve reentered your home, you can retrieve the points online and redeem them for discounts at stores like CVS and PETCO, or on brands like Stonyfield Farms, Sun & Earth and Green Mountain Coffee.

Great.  Fan-tastic.  This is exactly what we need, added incentive for Americans to buy more necessary crap–sorry, necessary items like beef-flavored dog water from PETCO and holiday kitsch from CVS.  You can toss the Doh! ornaments after Christmas has come and gone, but hey, the dog water bottles are recyclable.  Lucky you!

Snarky comments aside, I can’t help but think that RecycleBank misses the mark entirely.  There’s a reason ‘recycle’ is last of that holy trinity of three ‘R’s, following on the heels of ‘reduce’ [what you need, what you buy], and ‘reuse’ [what you own, what you borrow].  I don’t mean this to sounds preachy, as I recognize that my own life is riddled with seeming contradictions between my environmental ideals and my own daily habits.  I actually don’t think there is one “right” way to care about people and the planet, but there certainly are some wrong ones.  And I happen to think that encouraging Americans to consume more is not the right way.

By the way, if you’re intrigued by this idea of the environmental impacts of American consumption, take a look at Manufactured Landscapes (2006), an incredible documentary that follows photographer Edward Burtynsky through his travels in China.  I found it very sobering, but form your own opinion; that the film allows for you to do this is one of its most powerful aspects.

—Spring Greeney

November 8th, 2008 at 7:07 pm

But perhaps you disagree

One response so far

  • [ # ] prabhas — Feb 27, 2009 at 3:24 pm

    But reducing and reusing are much harder than recycling! You can set up a large factory that does recycling, and people can access it easily. But connecting people who want to throw away something to people who could use it in some way is hard.
    Craigslist / eBay exist for this, but it’s hard, so people only tend to do it with expensive stuff.

    Not disagreeing on value level, but on the implementation level.