Words matter: Stop saying “you recycle”
When what you mean is “I separate my trash and put it in the respective bins”.
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 and put them 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:
- 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);
- An enormous amount of resources is also needed for the recycling process itself;
- the recycling process is not cheap…
