Put Down The Weapons
When we imagine how we might reuse materials, we start to see that there is a world of possibilities ready for us to create them!
TerraCycle, founded by Tom Szaky (a college student at the time), collected plastic bottles of all sorts, cleaned and refilled them with fertilizer made from worm refuse, and then relabeled and sold them for consumption. They continue to push the limits on the idea of what can be recycled.
Another company, ThredUP, is an online consignment (thrift) that allows customers to buy and sell secondhand clothing online. Instead of people throwing away clothes, others get an opportunity to buy them at an affordable price. It’s a win-win for everyone involved. This is a prime example of living interconnectedly.
So many major companies have built businesses by waging war with their competitors or other stakeholders: Uber with taxi drivers; Airbnb with regulators; Nike with Adidas; FedEx with UPS; and, the list goes on.
This way of doing business is exhausting. We can all be on the same team. When we are at war, we are reacting with our fight or flight response, but that’s not a healthy way for a human — or a company to grow! When we recognize our connection with others, stay curious, and look for collaboration, we grow individually and collectively.
Last year, Keurig, Dr. Pepper, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, and The Coca-Cola Company joined forces to eliminate packaging waste.
Chief sustainability officer of Procter & Gamble, Virginie Helias, shared that “Covid-19 brought into sharp focus the interdependency of human and planetary health, and the need for accurate, science-based data sharing. Real, lasting solutions can only be achieved when the facts are clear and everyone is on the same page.”
These companies “recognize that plastic pollution (a major source of waste) is a challenge that none of us can tackle alone and are working on a wide-ranging program to keep plastic out of nature.”
These companies show consumers that they, too, can work together in this fight against litter. If we can learn how to fight waste, and not each other, we could really start to see positive change on our planet.
Would you like some ideas on how to reuse plastic?
Did you know you can use reuse coffee creamer containers for snack storage, use laundry detergent bottles as watering cans, create a piggy bank out of a plastic bottle, or even make a lamp out of plastic bottle caps?!
If each of us can find practical ways to turn our trash into treasure, we will be headed in the right direction.
At the end of the day, we are all humans and we are all interconnected. We should be trying to save the planet from ourselves, and the only way we can do that is together. This isn’t consumers versus business versus government — we all have a part to play in this. And our actions, no matter how small, have an impact. Let’s put down the weapons and find a way to join forces in this fight for our planet.
References
https://www.budgetdumpster.com/blog/diy-plastic-bottles-recycling/