Let's imagine you're back in elementary school, and you just finished a box of juice. Your homeroom teacher tells you to throw it out, but you, being a good gold-star-getting kid, decide to recycle your juice box (because recycling saves the environment). You go to the recycling bins and browse the labels: paper, plastic, metal. You move toward the paper bin, since the juice box is mostly paper, right? But no! It has plastic too! You then move towards the plastic bin. But wait! Isn't that shiny bit that seals the opening of the juice box metal? Where do you put it? Where does it go?? When did recycling get so hard???
It used to be so simple, back in the good ol' days. You got a bin and you just put stuff in it, no sorting required. Usually, it was pretty self-explanatory what went where, but with the rise of "extreme" recycling, it's critical you put your trash EXACTLY in the right place, or else you might kill a forest or cause the extinction of a species you've never heard of...all because you were too ignorant and lazy to recycle right...
PennState is no exception to this phenomenon. You'd be blind if you don't see the long rows of recycling bins and their corresponding laminated sign. Papers, plastics, compost, all well and good, but when you gaze upon "landfill", that cartoonish face looks deep into your soul and asks, "Are you sure?" Some people can't be bothered to read through all the specifics of each sign, though a large portion of them do in fact put things in the proper place. Meanwhile, back at home, papers, plastics, and metal things were all thrown in the same bin and shipped off to who-knows-where.
With the threat of global warming at large more than it ever was before, the need to preserve the environment rises with it. By adding more and more categories for recycling, it's almost a burden to sort every piece of trash you throw out as compared to the 1900's when not as much thought was put into it at all. In my Paradigm Shift Essay, I will be outlining the change in recycling from the 1900's to today's, by describing the context and social norms of each time period and how it has diversified and expanded.
Works Cited:
“A Brief History of Recycling.” Recycling Near You, recyclingnearyou.com.au/education/history-of-recycling.cfm.Carlson, Ann E. “Recycling Norms.” California Law Review, vol. 89, no. 5, 2001, pp. 1231–1300., www.jstor.org/stable/3481159.
I think this will be a great topic to cover! Your focus seems to be narrowed enough that you can be very successful talking about how recycling has changed. You can definitely pull plenty of significance and change over time especially considering how recycling started in response to the world wars and needing material for weapons versus it's need now to save the planet.
ReplyDeleteIt might be interesting to examine the different advantages and disadvantages of single- vs multi-stream recycling. Has this shift been driven by economic reasons, with companies adopting the most cost-effective methods? Has it been driven by scientific reasons, with companies adopting the most environmentally-friendly methods? Has it been driven socially, through changes in public perception or media reporting?
ReplyDeleteI can completely relate to how difficult it can be to recycle correctly. Sometimes I simply have no clue where it goes and I stand there contemplating what the best course of action. I will admit that sometimes I throw things in the trash simply because I cannot figure out which recycling bin it fits into. Your topic seems good and narrow.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I love your description of the cartoonish face looking deep into our soul and asking, "Are you sure?" So true! Ha!
ReplyDeleteI think this topic has potential, but I'm also struggling with a few considerations right now. It's true that recycling has changed (earlier: more simple, later: more complicated), but this change, in and of itself, isn't necessarily mean that it's a *paradigm* shift.
I think Louis is helpful to ask those questions about what this means. What is the significance of this altered procedure? If it's just a technical difference about how we sort things, then it might not be a paradigm shift, and you might want to shift your topic's focus. But if there's something deeper underneath the surface than just sorting our recyclables into increasingly-complicated bins, then you have the green light to proceed.