Is recycling a new religion?

Occasionally religion comes up when discussing recycling, with it typically being used as a gentle (or not so gentle) slight. Depending on the person, it infers dogma, evangelism or perhaps even some clever analysis of parallels between religion and recycling.

Creation of Adam, Michelangelo. Source: Wikipedia

Given today is Easter Sunday, it is a good time to reflect on the religion of recycling.

The fractal world of institutional innovation and waste

This post is built around a fantastic article called Institutional Innovation by +John Hagel and +john seely brown.

The article is such a rich source of ideas that it has had my head spinning for weeks. It has given me a vocabulary to clothe my ideas, along with some reputable sages who flesh them out. I've been thinking the ideas through in the context of waste, and as I explore I come to a fractal world where waste is dissolved down into its byproducts, a fractal process of looking deeper and deeper into details to extract ever increasing value.

It reminds me of the Mandelbrot set.

Mandelbrot set. Source: Wikipedia (jpg)

What does it feel like when your world starts to implode?

Good God! Last post was on the 24th of February! A lot of water has passed under the bridge, and just about as many excuses. But it has been pretty tough - an earlier version of this post described my world as imploding.

Maybe it was. Probably it wasn't. What I am more certain of is that the blogosphere isn't particularly interested in hearing that sort of stuff. So it's gone. Suffice it to say that the last couple of weeks have been tough.

Imploding, by Agnes Nedregard. Source: Stills.

What has made the difference have been some great articles to spark me,.