By Jeremy Drake, Community Engagement Manager at Home ReSource
Published in Missoula Current, May 11, 2018
Dear China,
You sure have created quite a stir. At first, I was surprised that you decided to stop taking the world’s recyclables — and I wasn’t the only one. People everywhere are struggling with your decision to pull out of the global recycling market. We had gotten used to the way things were. Then you started shutting your ports. And all of a sudden, here we are in the midst of a global recycling crisis. Things were looking dire; now I see that this might just be what the world needs.
To a great extent you created the conditions for the modern world to recognize — or remember — that materials aren’t “waste” until they’re wasted. You helped us Americans to become very diligent recyclers. For many of us in Missoula, recycling represents one small thing we can do to show we care about the Earth and our future.
Honestly, many of us didn’t know that our good intentions were paving a dangerous road. We thought we were doing our part by simply putting our paper and plastic in the right bin and keeping those materials and others — like electronics — out of the landfill. For years we didn’t know that our efforts to be good stewards came at the expense of the health of your people and your environment. Then the word started to get out and now we all know that we have been keeping our backyards clean at the expense of yours….Read the entire article at missoulacurrent.com.
