Coming out of the Schnucks on Chatham Road yesterday, I got stuck in congestion. Not vehicular congestion, this was a slow-moving conga line of shoppers. I veered out of the path, off to the right, preferring the longer walk at a faster pace to the slower, shorter trudge. As I did so, something caught my eye: the plastic bag recycling bin had gotten a makeover: What had been, I think, a blue plastic bin with slogans draped around the slot in the top had become a faux-wood box.
My first reaction was not, I confess, very big-hearted: "That's tacky." But my eyes dropped down to the sign on the front of the bin, and I got interested. The faux wood is Trex, a wood and plastic composite molded into beams for use outside. The sign said that Trex is one of the materials made from recovered plastic bags.
This, I thought with the fervor of a convert, is pretty great. Whoever came up with this is pretty brilliant. One of the big problems with non-regulatory approaches to environmentalism is keying people into how the environment and economy interact, the way that individual actions build toward something ecologically sound or ecologically disastrous. Stuff like Fair Trade and Bird-Friendly labels on coffee is one way to work it on the consumer side. This, on the waste management side, is another. One of the problems with recycling is that at the point of disposal recycling and just throwing something away sort of feel the same. The blue bin counteracts it somewhat, but there's little in the way of positive feedback to help keep you going. (Seeing products advertised as made with recycled materials is another way, but that's complex since it's also a selling tool. The Trex box nicely reinforces what you're doing.
[cross posted to The Other Leading Blog]