HomeMy WebLinkAboutJeffCo MuThe Food Co-Op has asked me, your county’s solid waste coordinator, to say a few words about
why plastic materials stamped with the numbers 3 through 7 are not presently accepted in the
county’s recycling program. I should begin by addressing the most frequently asked question
about our recycling program: “What is the connection between Jefferson County’s recycling
program and the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism?” Let’s first consider the path to
enlightenment that Rinzai monks follow.
Rinzai beginners seeking enlightenment are often asked a nonsensical question called a koan.
The student deliberates on this puzzle for an extended period of time until their intense
concentration leads them to see past categorical thinking and enter into kensho, a level of
consciousness that does not see the world in dichotomous terms. For the Rinzai initiate the only
“right” answer to the koan is “Mu”, which is interpreted as “not”, or “nothing” or “no thing”. In
other words, the student is telling the master, “The question is wrong!”
Getting back to the relationship between Jefferson County and Rinzai Zen
Buddhism, we could ask ourselves a koan of significance to our recycling
program, like “why doesn’t Jefferson County recycle plastics numbers 3
through 7?” The answer would be “Mu!” Consider that the buying and
selling of recyclable materials is a global enterprise and that often there is no
domestic market for certain commodities. Plastics with numbers between 3
and 7 are the least valuable of plastics commodities because they are of a
lower quality and have already been recycled several times. Because profit
margins in recyclable materials are so narrow to begin with, domestic
recycling programs will often accept all plastics regardless of numbering so
that the total volume (and dollar value) of the high grade plastics can be
increased through a greater public participation rate owing to the
convenience of just tossing all plastics into a single bin.
The plastics in such programs are collected, bundled together and shipped
to overseas markets, most typically to China, and this is exactly where our
categorical way of thinking begins to fail us. If our aim is to promote a
healthy environment by recycling we probably shouldn’t be sending
materials of dubious value to countries with famously lax or non-existent labor and
environmental safeguards. Are we really promoting a healthier planet if we are simply exporting
our “waste” half way around the world?
That’s precisely the question that Public Works staff and our partners in recycling, D.M.
Disposal and Skookum Educational Programs, asked ourselves when we considered this
practice. By consensus, we adopted a policy for all materials collected in our program that
requires that “materials must be sold to buyers engaged in business practices that are verified to
be environmentally and socially responsible.” To date we have not found a single buyer who can
meet this simple requirement for plastics numbers 3 through 7.
So, perhaps a better question to ask ourselves - one that can be answered without “Mu” - is
“what can I do as a Food Co-Op shopper to create a healthier environment?” An obvious one is
to buy whole foods and other products that do not come packaged in plastic at all. Your Food
無
Mu
Co-op already does an amazing job at promoting just this sort of enlightened choice by offering
so many bulk product options. If we really want to be good stewards of our only planet, our best
effort might be to take advantage of all the opportunities your Food Co-Op has created for you.
Your planet will appreciate your enlightened ways and so will your hardworking local farming
families.