21 Designing a Sustainable Future, Part 4

Future Sustainability Responses –From Reducing to Repurposing

Image: volunteer workers collecting and bagging trash for recycling (ChatGPT)

Recap

We now arrive at the penultimate post in our exploratory series focused on designing a sustainable future. In the previous three posts, we covered several R (“re”) words, beginning in Part 1 with rethinking, realizing, reimaging, and reevaluating, and followed sequentially in Part 2 with retreating, rewilding, and restraining, in Part 3 with reviewing, revising, resizing, and rescaling, and in this Part 4 with reducing, reusing, repairing, recycling, and repurposing. The next and final post of this designing series, Part 5, the focus will be directed at the extremely challenging goal of restoring and rejuvenating our heavily damaged bio-ecosphere.

Effective Responses – Reducing, Reusing and Repairing

I suspect that, in the future – if not years, perhaps decades from now – individuals possessing practical knowledge and skills for managing most of life’s challenges will be more able to survive and sustain health and wellness. A growing number of people are beginning to realize that managing their personal possessions requires a range of skills. Fortunately, informational assistance is readily available in all educational formats – online videos, books, workshops, as well as personal help from family members, friends, neighbors and professionals in various fields. Some of the basic knowledge and skills needed for coping in what could well become a future of diminished resources is available in a previous post: Envisioning a Sustainable Future, Part 4

I can share some personal experiences my wife and I practice in reducing unnecessary items, and reusing and repairing essential items. With our limited modern-human skill sets, we try to reduce, reuse, and repair whatever we can. I expect some of our practices will resonate with yours, beginning with some resource-reducing tactics, particularly water use and clothing. Since our water-reduction methods and techniques might raise eyebrows, it will suffice to claim that I’d be willing to wager that we use far fewer gallons than most people we know.

In addressing material consumption, clothing is a relevant topic of concern for everyone, so some of our practices seem worth sharing. First, it’s significant that, for several decades, most of our modest annual purchases of clothing items have been procured from local thrift stores, usually at low prices on senior shopping days. Actually, other than a leather jacket unwisely purchased on a trip aboard, every jacket and winter coat I own was bought at local thrift stores. Usually, when visiting our two local thrift stores, we donate various items, including seldom-used clothing, some of which were even found when taking village walks or hiking park trails.

One extra benefit of purchasing used clothing has been acquiring higher-quality items than we normally purchase at retail stores. We also mend otherwise usable garments rather than getting rid of them. Without commenting on other reuse and reduce measures we’ve taken, it will suffice to explain that, although we can well afford to purchase new clothing, it’s a far more gratifying practice to acquire high-quality items at low prices. And this includes some that are either slightly flawed new items or like new.

Another way of reusing an item is to repurpose it, a process that encourages creative craftsmanship. For instance, I converted a thrift-store oakwood lamp table to a computer desk. It simply involved removing the table’s square-top board and placing it atop a portable office file container to serve as a raised platform base. The combined office file and computer desk sit atop a desk-high credenza-style filing cabinet purchased years ago from a university reuse-storage warehouse along with six filing cabinets for storing our personal documents and materials. When using my desktop computer, the desktop setup also allows options for either sitting in a height-adjustable office chair or standing when the need arises.

I also enjoy finding creative ways to repurpose used materials. For instance, during a three-year period several years ago, I focused on designing and constructing model airplanes using pre-used materials, like Styrofoam, cardboard, and assorted random materials (buttons, toothpicks, etc.) The result includes six models suspended (and flying) from the ceiling of our home office.

Repairing damaged or broken items can also be a form of reuse. Unfortunately, most of today’s products are not designed to be repaired by willing handypersons, particularly high-tech electronic products. Planned obsolescence is readily apparent to those of us who have been around a long time. Most appliances, including home-heating systems, tended to last longer than more recent models powered by natural gas. On the other hand, modern appliances are more energy efficient and provide more high-tech options, some seemingly unnecessary (at least for me).

As for small appliances, like coffee makers, the last two low-priced models we bought lasted only a few months prior to each conking out. Luckily, in a kitchen cabinet I discovered a stored vintage Le Café Corning Ware coffee maker, a 10-cup model we used decades ago. Thankfully, it continues working very well. Caring for it takes a bit more effort, but it functions dependably and simply. According to online listings, they apparently remain in popular demand.

Developing low-tech repairing skills will grow ever more necessary in a future of limited resources. For all of its socioeconomic problems, Cuba is a somewhat “impoverished” country that excels in repairing and maintaining just about every material item used by humans. The island nation is perhaps best known for using ingenious low-tech methods and techniques to keep iconic U.S 1950s-vintage vehicles on the road. In general, most future technologies should be simple, practical, dependable, affordable, scalable, and easy for most adults to operate.

For anyone desiring to learn how to repair and maintain most personal and home items, an online search could reveal nearby Fix-It Clinics (one example), particularly in large metro areas with surrounding suburban cities. Also, excellent online videos feature experts demonstrating how to repair, restore, and renovate most standard items. If tools are a concern, it may be possible to check them out or rent special equipment for short-term needs at a local Tool-Lending Library. If these two services are not provided locally, perhaps it’s time to make them available.

Effective Responses – Recycling and Repurposing

In creating a resilient and sustainable way of living within Earth’s carry capacity, we must somehow arrive at a point where most of our consumed material goods are capable of being recycled into useful materials. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Americans waste an estimated 30-40% of purchased but unconsumed edible food, most of which could be redistributed or repurposed. Composting unused organic food materials continues gaining wider attention and acceptance, but there’s still more that can be done in terms of size and scale.

Recycling of animal waste is largely associated with composting animal manure produced by livestock animals – cows, pigs, chickens, et al – raised on farms and ranches. (Note: Scientists have discovered toxic chemicals in the animal manure and sludge collected by factory-farmed animals and spread on agricultural fields.) Recycling also occurs as a natural process, with the decomposing and composting remains of wild animals. In contrast, we modern humans have developed expensive, energy-intensive methods for disposing bodies of deceased loved ones.

Ecological harms associated with conventional burials include the replacement of vacant land spaces with cemeteries containing semi-permanent gravesites, most of which are typically marked with either ground-level plaques or expensive gravestones and monuments. Moreover, deceased persons are embalmed with toxic chemicals (including formaldehyde), and buried in long-lasting caskets or coffins, which are often sealed in grave liners and waterproofed vaults, materials that will not decompose naturally. The plastic flowers, flags, and whatnots that decorate graves add further harms, materially and aesthetically.

Partially in response to such ecological maltreatments — as well as changing societal beliefs and concerns about costs — more people are electing cremation, which also has an ecological downside related to high energy use and carbon emissions. In 2021, the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) reported that the expected rate of cremation was 57.5%, and the projected burial rate to be 36.6%. When considering the cremation rate six decades ago was less than 4%, the growing preference for cremation over burial is remarkable.

As more people become more ecologically aware and sustainability minded, the concept of eco-friendly green burials is growing in popularity. Actually, for most of human history prior to the mid-19^th century, all burials were eco-friendly. Green-burial methods offer options that are sustainable and cost-effective, including such methods as alkaline hydrolysis, human composting, and reef-ball formations. These methods reduce environmental impact by conserving land, minimizing the use of non-renewable resources and dangerous chemicals. Because they also minimize damage to supporting ecosystems, they are considered a responsible choice for honoring the deceased. More information is provided on the websites of The Green Burial Council and The Order of the Good Death.

As for recycling a multitude of manufactured human products, the sad reality is that U.S. recycling programs are experiencing varying rates of success in recycling collected materials, mostly due to such issues as quality, contamination, and commercial demand. The Recycling Partnership reports that only 21% of U.S. residential recyclable materials are captured. Also, the website Verify provides additional updated analysis of this issue.

One promising recycling strategy involves employing a functional cradle-to-grave design that makes full use of all extracted, processed, and used materials. Even better if all material products could be converted into useful healthy products; for instance, technical nutrients composed of 1) non-toxic synthetic materials that can be recycled into other products, and 2) biological nutrients composed of organic material that can be composted in forming rich, healthy soil.

A word regarding bioplastics seems warranted. In addition to the dangers posed by using PFAs(polyfluoroalkyl substances), the widely-hyped use of polylactic acid (PLA), which is made from corn or sugarcane, needs careful reconsideration (another relevant R-word). Solving plastic pollution will require developing materials and systems designed to eliminate wastefulness, and are plastic-free, non-toxic, reusable, and refillable. For certain, we do not need wasteful single-use synthetic materials like PLA.

Wrap Up

As a key predatory species, we humans have grown accustomed to consuming and wasting natural resources as an individual right, rather than a special luxury. Only a small portion of our species question our apparent addiction to living blindly within an unsustainable pro-growth economic paradigm, regardless of the increasing complexity and dysfunctional aspects. This is particularly the case for those of us living in “developed countries”. Unfortunately, our exuberant consumptive practices are being emulated by “developing countries” eager to lift their citizens’ standards of living as much as possible.

Thus, humankind continues unabated consumption, even while entertaining limited awareness that the Earth is a finite system. Civilization and the planet are on a collision course that promises potentially disastrous outcomes, including the combined collapse of society and the bio-ecosphere.

All of this explanation is meant to emphasize the human imperative to assume a more empathetic stance regarding the interdependent relationship we share with all Earth beings and systems in sustaining life. All of the R-words discussed up till now have addressed ways of redressing harms we’ve inflicted, from realizing how we’ve degraded the planet and quality of life for its wild creatures to acting responsibly in recycling consumed materials and waste products.

The next and final post in this series – Designing a Sustainable Future, Part 5 – we’ll focus on some R-words that continue redressing human-generated harms, including the destabilizing effects of human-driven global warming and extreme-weather events. On a positive note, we’ll wind up this series considering ways we can help restore, rewild, and regenerate all natural systems – forests, native plants, arable soil, all waterways, oceans, and seas. Should constructive measures prove successful, the planet will also benefit from a resurgence of wildlife species, including some on the brink of extinction.

Please join us for the final roundup of our exploratory journey focused on envisioning, designing, and developing a sustainable future socioeconomic paradigm.