What if the human being gets it wrong? From a modernist perspective thought, our conceptual frameworks, efface the world of things. They are denied action.

What people say and what garbage "says" are divergent.

Let us consider an example from The Garbage Project. Upper income households from a large sample in Tuscon, Arizona claimed that they recycled most everything. Lower income households, by contrast, were much more modest in their recycling claims. Based on counts of pull-tabs in household garbage and six pack plastic rings and aluminum cans left in garbage, it was clear that both groups recycled at approximately the same rate. What archaeologists would be able to 'interpret' from questionaries is that one group's additudes and believes were dedicated to recycling for the environmental benefit and the other group recycled primarily for economic gain.

But the reality on the ground is somewhat different.

What of the recyclying percentage paradox? In 1970 in the US we recycled 15 percent of all paper sold. In 1994 we recycled 35 percent of all paper sold. In more concrete terms, in 1970 we recycled 6 million tones of waste paper while in 1994 we recycled 28 million. So as a result most people believed that we were winning the war against waste by recycling. WHOA! In contrast to these beliefs in 1994 14.7 million MORE tones of paper were landfilled than in 1970. That is the recycling paradox--a high recycling rate but more waste thrown away.

The reason for the paradox is simply the much larger quanity of paper waste generated in 1994 than in 1970. In the 24 years that intervened the quantity of paper and paperboard burgeoned from 44 million to 81 million tones. The problem is that the absolute increase in the paper waste recycled (22 million tones) was not as great as the absolute increase in paper waste not recycled (37 million tones)!

Perhaps, as many studies have suggested people who recycle considerable amounts of material feel empowered to buy even more materials because they are "winning the war against waste."

Issue cannot be one of the things say something different from the people because the disgarded thing is part of the household. We are entangled and yet household beliefs deny this entanglement due to misinformation such as the recycling percentage paradox. Still musing...

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