So here we are, November 15 and it is America Recycles Day. So what does that mean? Well, apparently over at TreeHugger it is Recycling is Bullshit week with not only one, but two posts telling us all that recycling is wrong, er bullshit on many fronts. After all recycling is piling up everywhere due to a lack of demand.

I have to say that I agree, but I disagree. Recycling is a bit of bullshit and feel goodness, but necessary as well. Here is a snippet of the comments I left on the TreeHugger post:

More re-useables? That is a great idea. It used to be, when I was a kid, (not that long ago I am only 39) that you could get your milk delivered in a glass bottle and when they brought new, they picked up old for re-use. Coke too. We took our bottles back to the store. However I stopped drinking soda 15 years ago.

Stop recycling? This is a problem. I have a lot of anti green people in my life that will use this as a way to mock us on one more thing. “You recycle?!? How bogus! What a waste, you know big business is making you clean up their mess.” Some will take this as a reason to just stop recycling now. Not good…..

I like the idea of more neighborhood markets. More opps for unpackaged goods carefully wrapped in butcher paper for the trip home. Loaf of bread at Romina’s bakery, coffee at Earth Goods and meat from the neighborhood butcher. How nice would that be. Buy your produce and don’t use those plastics bags…..

We are getting back to many of these things, but we can’t scare people off of recycling. We need recycling for now.

I do agree that many use recycling as a crutch and as an excuse to lead a consumerist life while still making them feel like it is OK, but whatever we do, we do still need to recycle. However, we need to and must pair this with using less, not more. We need to do more to grow our own foods. We need to buy fewer single serve items and convenience foods. We need to force manufacturers to use less materials in packaging. Much like WalMart has driven down package size among their manufacturers, along with Amazon.com and Costco.

So really the answer is to use less. We can’t get rid of disposables in our life, but we can use less of them. We will have some packaging to deal with, but we can reduce the size and use less of it. It is a problem when people stop buying and the need for recycled products diminishes, but we do still have to recycle. Ultimately the thing we can do is use less, use everything to it’s fullest and recycle everything that we have to.

Is this the ultimate answer? Probably not. Almost all of our recyclables are shipped out of the country to be recycled and they are not always recycled with the health of those who do the work in mind. Maybe we should do it at home and do it right.