I would like to open up a topic for discussion - Completing The Circle. In my travels, I am talking with many more people who are recycling paper and plastic. This is a hugely positive step.
A next step in living the green life can be to complete the circle. By this I mean, using products made out of recycled paper and recycled plastic. People are focusing on the recycling part - the out - and the next area of opportunity is to focus on the in. What are the products coming into our lives made of? If the answer is recycled paper and recycled plastic with a high percentage of post-consumer content (actually recycled by consumers first), then we have completed the circle as nature would do! If they are made of virgin paper for example, well, then we are more like a one way street.
Initiate the Circle: Recycle Paper
Complete the Circle: Use Products made of Recycled Paper
Initiate the Circle: Recycle Plastic
Complete the Circle: Use Products made of Recycled Plastic
Paper is a great place to start because there are so many fabulous and ecofabulous products made of recycled paper, such as Seventh Generation, New Leaf Paper, Good On Paper, Green Field Paper, Eco Paper, Safeway's new Bright Green Paper Towels, and Staples 100% Recycled bright copy & printing paper. With the exception of tree-free, all paper used to be a forest. Select the highest percentage of post-consumer content that you can find, and you will really be completing the circle. Maybe you will even see the paper you recycled last month in there somewhere.
A wonderful example of a company closing the circle is TerraCycle, a company that makes products entirely from garage or waste, such as reused soda bottles and other company's extras. Tom Szaky's leading-edge company is truly turning garage into gold.
Another great case is Rickshaw Bags made from recycled PET fabric. The founder Mark Dwight calls it Bottles To Bags. The bags are so handsome, you would never know it.
Completing the circle also makes good business sense because it can be less financially and resource intensive to use existing materials than it is to chop down a new forest or to blow the top off a mountain to mine for new minerals for example. Here is a secret: for many companies, over 90% of their carbon footprint comes from the raw materials they use. Switching to making products out of recycled materials is the greenest thing they could do.
For instance, the new Reynolds Wrap 100% Recycled aluminum foil requires 80 - 95% less energy to make than traditional foil.
As Julia Butterfly Hill says, "It is not a circle until you close it." Let's use and reuse what we have already have at our "disposal." Let's celebrate all of the amazing recycling that is taking place and turn our attention to the regenerative beauty of completing the circle.
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