Phil von Hake responds to
"Confessions of a Righteous Recycler"
column in the Sunday Denver Post

March 13, 2005

The following is a letter that Phil von Hake wrote in response to the "Confessions of a Righteous Recycler" editorial found in the March 6, 2005 , edition of the Sunday Denver Post.

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E73%257E2760216,00.html

Bravo to Carol Valera Jacobson. My wife and I also feel alone sometimes in our southwest Denver neighborhood, as our recycling bin always holds far more than our trash cans do on pickup day.

While reading this column, I was reminded of two quotes that I still consider to be quite profound.

One was on a car bumper sticker: "When you throw something away, where is away?" Sadly, Jacobson, the owner of that car, and I are in that small minority of Americans who try our best to avoid the dark side of our consumer-oriented society: the "disposable" side.

The other is from world-famous architect William McDonough: "Waste equals food." "Waste" essentially does not occur in nature, as every output from every natural system serves as input for some other system. If human-designed systems are to last, then they must have the "waste" aspect designed out of them entirely.

We are starting to see some of this happen in big business: Power plants are channeling their excess heat back into producing more power; hybrid cars use their own momentum to recharge their batteries; and Nike is making shoes from old shoes and other recycled materials.

At the individual level, we need more people like Jacobson. Just because something is no longer useful to you does not mean that it has no other place to go other than the trash.

Phil von Hake
Morrison