A Garbological week recapped

With the working week over, the narrative for the week's blogs can be summed up as forming a framework for how big recycling can get (as in the case of steel scrap), then looking at the underlying forces which drive this and thinking how those forces might be harnessed.

The exploration of driving forces led us to thinking about steel's obvious helpful physical properties (it is magnetic and so easily extracted), but also its role as a central part in forming the dynamic American economy, and thus driving immense innovation. The physical properties are relatively unique to steel. The social element of the story is not., and some of the driving forces behind the success in steel recycling  can be transferred to other materials. 

We continued to broaden our thinking on root causes by considering Murray Bookchin, philosopher and penetrating thinker. We thought a bit about how Bookchin's writing in relation to domination, ecological thinking and human scaled technology might be applied to waste management. It can, and is a very good fit for a philosophy that this blog will continue to develop, which has human scaled waste management at the core of a revolution in how we think about our waste.

A real example of human scaled waste processing waste was then explored, looking at how mattresses are recycling by cutting them apart manually to recover the various components rather than using big industrial shredders. Dismantling extracts more value and is a clever application of low tech.

Low tech is not the only way a human scaled system for waste management will be achieved. The analogy of Silicon Valley was borrowed, and the question asked how we might achieve such a phenomenon of extreme innovation in waste and recycling. It boils down to clever people developing clever business models, bootstrapping them until they run themselves and then attracting the investment. It is not a matter of competing with Silicon Valley in size, but instead to look to emulate the synergistic ecosystem that has created around innovation.

That is the week that was. I look forward to blogging again on Monday.