The first rule of capitalism is that everything must make a profit. The second rule is that the profit must increase each year. The economy must keep growing. This means more and more raw materials are used up and more and more energy is used up, much of it from non-renewable sources. It means more emissions and more pollution of the environment. And more and more old stuff to get rid of so the newly produced stuff can be sold. Because that’s the only way profits can keep growing. Continue reading
Tag Archives: recycling
The Way We Do Recycling Is Rubbish
The way we do recycling is rubbish. It is rubbish because the main goal has been to make money out of it.
In New Zealand, local councils thought they could make money by saving the costs of running their local landfills. Companies thought they could make money by collecting it up, doing a bit of rough sorting and shipping off the raw materials to somewhere else where labour is cheap and worker health and safety and environmental regulations next to non-existent. Places where there were plenty of people willing to clamber over the piles of imported ‘recyclables’ pulling out the stuff that is clean enough and easy enough to reprocess, for next to nothing in wages. And with no idea of the damage being done to their health, and the health of the environment they lived in, by exposure to many of the items in the piles. Continue reading