{"id":3094,"date":"2019-07-30T19:50:26","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T19:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/?p=3094"},"modified":"2019-07-30T19:50:28","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T19:50:28","slug":"sustainability-fact-or-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/?p=3094","title":{"rendered":"Sustainability: Fact or Fiction?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If asked could you provide proof that your company’s sustainability efforts are more than just greenwashing? Does your company utilize science, data and facts to drive sustainability solutions over clever marketing or “feel good” stories about sustainability? <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nrecent Earth Day has caused me to reflect a bit about what is actually being\ndone to improve the environmental condition of the planet.  I watched the\nself-promotion of companies trying to grab our attention and sell us on how\nsustainable and environmental they are.  There seems to be a great deal of\nfocus from companies to look at sustainability from a marketing standpoint over\nwhat should be truly sustainable or at the least better for the\nenvironment.  They promote and make claims about some story or process\nthey have implemented and claim it to be more sustainable.  Unfortunately,\nnearly all of these companies lack the one critical component of sustainability\nand that is using science, data and facts to drive their solutions.  It\nseems to me that many companies, including the big fortune 500 would have the\nability and resources to hire the right people to oversee their sustainability\nefforts and implement solutions which are fact and data driven.  Instead\nwhat is observed are companies struggling to truly understand what\nsustainability is about and end up implementing \u201cfeel good\u201d or story based\ngimmicks to promote how sustainable they are becoming when in truth when\nanalyzing the LCA data of these gimmicks most of these \u201cfeel good\u201d approaches\noffer no environmental value or benefit at all.  Do sales and marketing\nreally have that strong of an influence over sustainability efforts which\nshould be driven by science, facts and data?   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s\nworse is when \u201cexperts\u201d are used to push the \u201cthe only solution to plastic\npollution is producing less plastic,\u201d or \u201cwe are going to recycle our way out\nof this problem\u201d agenda.  It is quite unfortunate when these so called\nexperts thoughtless and meaningless opinions are used to steer solutions to\nthis massive problem of plastic pollution.  I know of a couple of\nindustries who are so fixated on the recycling message that the facts and data\ncompletely elude any rational thought.  Anyone who understands global\npopulation and economic growth would know that producing less plastics is not\nin our near future and will most likely never happen without a catastrophic\nreduction to the human species.  The planet is on a steadily increasing\nrate of growth which leads to more consumption and with that consumption comes\nthe economic development of poorer nations which leads to accelerated\nconsumption.  It\u2019s a nasty circle driven by the growth of the global\npopulation and the desire to live a more consumption based life (the good\nlife).  Regardless of whether we use plastic, paper, mushrooms, algae,\nspace dust, or unicorn farts as our packaging materials we will always need a\nCRAP ton of it and will need to figure out effective, beneficial (to the\nenvironment and economy) and valuable ways of handling it.  Gathering and\nshipping waste to other parts of the country or other countries in our globe to\nprocess isn\u2019t the solution, nor is merely suggesting to the public to reduce\nplastic use.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nit\u2019s not plastic it will be some other material we are trying to solve the\npollution problem for.  So easily we forget the crisis of the past. \nTo solve the issue of paper grocery bags (which by the way was going to be the\nend of all the trees and human life as we knew it) we developed plastic bags which\nis now the new crisis and surprise! It\u2019s also being promoted as the next cause\nto the end of the human race.  When will the \u201cexperts,\u201d \u201cget it\u201d the\nproblem isn\u2019t what material is being used or how much material we use, it\u2019s\nwhat we do with and how we handle that material after use!  This is always\ngoing to be the problem of a growing population.  We could always go back\nto the days of using animal stomachs for transporting liquids but that\u2019s a\nwhole lot of animal stomachs and what would the vegetarians use?  Companies\nmust use packaging materials which are more intelligently designed to work\nwithin the infrastructures of our disposal environments to create a value and\nbenefit (both environmentally and economically).      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One\nsuch approach is in the conversion of plastic waste in the landfill into clean\nand inexpensive energy.  This approach requires no special or additional\nhandling of materials and converts plastics into biogas through the natural\nprocess of microbes.  It utilizes the existing waste management infrastructures\nwhile placing the solution on materials to add value within the common disposal\nenvironment of a landfill.  If all plastics were designed to work within\ntheir common disposal environment by the year 2030 (11 years) landfill gas into\nenergy would be the single largest source of renewable energy and would surpass\nall other forms of renewable energy including; wind, solar, and hydro. \nLet\u2019s stop the BS hyperbole that landfills are these evil and bad places or\nthat the world is running out of landfill space.  The data and the science\nshow the environmental value and benefit of having materials convert into fuel\nand energy within the landfill.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s\nstop pretending ideas like recycling and reduction are going to solve\nanything.  Those two words have been used as part of the \u201cReduce, Recycle,\nReuse\u201d campaign since the 1970\u2019s.  After nearly fifty years of that\ncampaign look at the mess of where things are today.  The recycling mess\nwe have today certainly isn\u2019t due to a lack of spending money or repeating the\nmessage to brain wash everyone into reducing, reusing, or recycling.  It\u2019s\ndue to the fact that words don\u2019t solve complex plastic pollution problems, it\nalso shows that money doesn\u2019t solve these problems either.  Billions of\ndollars have been given by governments to subsidized the recycling industry to\nbuild and support it and what do we have to show for that investment?  Why\nis the recycling industry in such a mess given all the money and investment\nthat has been provided and why are we ok with knowing that our recycling\nefforts have resulted in more plastic pollution to our oceans and planet than\nany other activity?     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plastics\nand other waste should work within their common disposal environments to have\nan environmental value and benefit at disposal.  I know we all \u201cfeel good\u201d\nabout placing things in the \u201crecycle bin\u201d and we don\u2019t want to know about the\nugly monster of what truly goes on behind the recycle bin \u201ccurtain\u201d.  Our\nrecycling efforts have resulted in massive amounts of plastics being dumped\noceans and recycling rates in the single digits, so we can \u201cfeel good\u201d about\nourselves .  It\u2019s time we stop with the \u201cfeel good\u201d approach and start\ntaking action to fix the plastic pollution problem using real science, facts,\nand data driven solutions.  Implementing solutions with the true meaning\nof circularity and sustainability would benefit society and the environment\nmuch more than this baseless approach of double down and continue pushing\nplastic recycling programs which have failed to provide environmental value\n(have severely polluted the planet), requires billions to subsidize and has\nlittle science and data to support that it actually has environmental\nvalue.  Plastics should be designed to go away (to create environmental\nvalue) where plastics are thrown away.  If one of those options should\ninclude recycling, then the science and data should support the way the\ninfrastructures of collection, sortation, processing, and transportation are\nimplemented in such a way that has environmental (human health is part of this)\nand economic value.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.voanews.com\/science-health\/china-plastic-waste-ban-throws-global-recycling-chaos<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should\nyour company be one the many which has implemented a \u201csustainability\u201d program\nor process with no data or science to back up the environmental claims you are\nengaging in nothing more than greenwashing and misleading consumers in the\nworse possible way.  Whether your company reduces packaging, utilizes\nrecycled content, switched to a more environmental material, implemented a\nbring-back recycling program, or any of many other gimmicks make sure you have\nthe science and data to back up your claims.  And I\u2019m not talking about\nmanipulating data to fit your program, I\u2019m talking about letting the data drive\nand create your programs.  9 times out of 10 you\u2019ll find that the data\nwill show that your brilliant idea to implement a bring-back program or a shoe\nrecycling program offers zero environmental value or benefit and in many cases\nwill have a negative environmental impact requiring more resources and producing\nmore carbon than your program thinks it is helping by figuring out how to reuse\na material.  The act of reusing\/recycling a material\/s is not inherently\nmore environmental, it is only more environmental when it the data shows the\nprocesses involved to reuse\/recycle those materials has a net environmental\nbenefit\/value.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe end, your company\u2019s sustainability solutions should be all about the\nenvironment; shouldn\u2019t it?  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If asked could you provide proof that your company’s sustainability efforts are more than just greenwashing? Does your company utilize science, data and facts to drive sustainability solutions over clever marketing or “feel good” stories about sustainability? The recent Earth Day has caused me to reflect a bit about what is actually being done to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,739,743],"tags":[1552,1554,1474,835,1555,129,1551,1553],"class_list":["post-3094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-blogs","category-recycling-2","category-thought-provoking","tag-china-recycling-ban","tag-eref-designed-for-discard","tag-landfill-energy","tag-plastic-recycling","tag-plastics-into-energy","tag-recycling","tag-recycling-is-dead","tag-waste-into-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3094"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3098,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3094\/revisions\/3098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}