It amazes me how much media and marketing promotes recycling. In my opinion, it’s a big hype which helps companies produce much more than we actually need.
Take plastic bag vs paper bag discussions as an example. How many of us have ever gave it a real thought. Do you think it's true that paper bags are better for our planet than plastic? I bet most of us think that. And I blame this to the false marketing and some clueless regulators.
Plastic bags was and is a disaster. I true that. But, the fact is that producing paper bags cost much more to our planet than the plastic bags. Research shows that paper bag production creates at least 70% more air pollution and 50 times (thats 5000%) more water pollution. And it does not degrade much faster than a plastic bag under a land fill.
Many individuals and organisations understand this and try to solve it in different ways. But unfortunately, most of the time it comes out as something very boring or something which we are forced to do.
How about making people crave for intelligently designed materials like they do for a new electronic gadget.
I do not believe that people are careless by nature, It seems to be the way we got wired (not biologically but culturally and economically). I do not know the solution but I think a intelligent design is vital to solve this issue.
If you have something which you cannot reuse, please think of up-cycling before recycling or trashing.