Stop saying “you recycle”

I hate that in today’s world most things seem to be designed to distance ourselves from the truth so we feel better about ourselves. English is not my first language, but it hurts my ears when I hear someone say “… but I recycle”. When in actuality, what they mean is “I separate my trash in put it in the respective bins”.

In my opinion, the few people who are allowed to truthfully say “I recycle” are mainly those who work in sorting centers and recycling companies (and even so, I would give this privilege only to those who directly work in the recycling process and development of recycling technologies).

This recycling culture madness is making people believe that if they buy something that is recyclable it exonerates them from any ecological consequences. However:

1) a huge amount of resources are still used to produce this thing that you might end up using for just a few seconds to a few minutes (thinking mostly about disposable plastic here, but applies to almost everything you end up throwing away);

2) a huge amount of resources is also needed for the recycling process itself;

3) the recycling process is not cheap (there is still not enough incentives from governments), so very often, it is cheaper for companies to send the trash to a landfill or for incineration rather than to actually…