The article, "Recycling Helps, but It's Not All You Can Do for the Environment" by Alina Tugend can be found the New York Times website under today's date, October 19th, 2012.
Most people recycle pretty religiously, in fact recycling has become so automatic that it may feel slightly illicit to drop a bottle into a trash can. Recycling does help the environment, but only to a certain degree. Only about one-third of all trash gets prevented from ending up in landfills due to recycling. This is partially because people are not recycling everything that they can. Although, most of this is because people think there's a lot more being achieved than there actually is when recycling.
Gernot Wagner, an economist with the Environmental Defense Fund mentions, "There's a well-documented phenomenon known as single-action bias, where people do one thing and move on" he said "People don't explicitly think, 'I've recycled a cup and solved global warming,' but rather once they've done an action like recycling, they feel consciously or subconsciously like they've done their part."
When Wagner says this, he means that when many people recycle, they feel like they've done their part in solving global warming, when they have actually only helped the environment on a minuscule level. Instead of just recycling, you should try to help out the environment in more ways, like consuming less meat, conserving energy use, or eating locally grown food. This would not only help the environment more, but it would also give people a feeling of achievement that is accurate to what they have achieved.
The people who are influenced by the single-action bias remind me of farmers who use pesticides. The farmers feel good about their crops looking great, although they value of their crops are significantly lower than the crops of the farmers who grow organic crops. The farmer who uses pesticides feels like there's a lot more being achieved than there actually is, just like how a person who is influenced by the single-action bias would feel when they recycle.
I believe that there is a lot of tension in article because the professors are getting upset because of the sense of feeling more achieved than what was actually achieved. If this sense of over achievement was absent, then the world today may be a much greener place, and there may be much more interest on this topic. Professors are also mad about how only one of the "three Rs" gets used. Out of the "three Rs", recycling get emphasized the most by far, even though reduce and reuse are just as important, if not more important.
I completely agree with this article, and I have been motivated to use some of the suggestions listed in the article to be friendlier to the environment. Reading this article has made me realize how awful the single-action bias, and I believe that in order for a significant improvement of our ecosystem to occur, many more people need to be disabused of the single-action bias.
Kevin you did a great job summarizing this article. without reading it i feel like i have. i also greatly agree with what you have suggested in your summary that all of the "three R's" should be more emphazized because people think they are doing their part in society by just recycling. people who want the world to be more green need to use all of the "three R's". People need to stop being "single action-bias" as you said. If people think that recycling alone will save the world they are very false. This also made me want to help out on the environment more. Good job!
ReplyDeleteI have always had the creeping suspicion that my recycling doesn't help as much as I think it does. I looked up some of the statistics on it and I was right. This article is a great example of other more effective ways to help the environment. I personally only use all of the "three R's" to some extent, but not enough to make any sort of impact. Anyways, this was a great article and you did a good job summarizing it and adding your own comments.
ReplyDeleteI think that you did a swell job of making this talking about this problem. I find it interesting how recycling does not have as much of an effect as we are meant to think it does. I found what you said about the "single action-bias" to be very thought-provoking. One thing that confused me is when you said, "when many people recycle, they feel like they've done their part in solving global warming, when they have actually only helped the environment on a minuscule level." Do you think that this means that if no one recycled that it would have only a small negative effect on the environment? Nice summary!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you and this article. I think there are so many more ways of helping the environment than just recycling. In my opinion recycling is the easiest and thats why people are willing to do it. Other ways of helping the environment are a little harder and so people don't want to put that much of an effort into helping. Recycling is just throwing your trash in one bag and you recycling in the bag next to it. And you are right I think people believe that recycling is the most important thing to save the environment and in doing so they feel as though they are doing something great and don't need to do any more for the environment.
ReplyDeleteI find this topic very interesting and eye opening because so many of us are guilty of it. I agree that there is so much more we could all do to really help the environment other than just recycling. Many people don't realize how many other issues there are and that there are things we can do about them. It is in a way sad that people can just throw away a bottle and feel that they have done their part in helping the environment. If more people knew about the other ways to help the earth I think they would feel better, like you said, after they have done more than just recycling. I do think that if everybody recycled it would still have a good effect on the earth, there is just so much more than we realize needs to be done.
ReplyDeleteI find this to be really interesting. I know especially in our town, recycling is highly encouraged. So many people think they are helping out the environment just because they put one thing in the recycling bin. They are, but throwing away everything else that could be recycled is reversing their efforts. This is really interesting because even though global warming has been seeming to leave the topics of interest, it doesn't mean its going away. There's a lot more to be done by everyone if we want to really help this earth. Great job!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about how it feels almost wrong to drop a plastic bottle in a trash can. Americans do a pretty good job on our recycling part, but not many people even talk about reducing or reusing. I agree how we need to make more of an impact with the other two R's. Also, Ricky made a good point in his comment how recycling is just the easiest thing to do. Nice job.
ReplyDeleteGood pick on the article. I certainly agree that recycling does help the environment, however, recycling only helps the environment to a certain degree. An immense amount of recycled material isn't even reused, in comparison to the 2/3 of every recycling doesn't get reused. Most individuals don't even realize this. Overall, great job.
ReplyDeleteKevin, I think you chose a very interesting article that many people can relate to. I can most certainly relate to it because in my house, we try to recycle as much as possible but I did not know recycling isn't as effective as we think it is. After reading this blog post, I am going to encourage my family to use all of the three R's. Good job summarizing this article and I enjoyed reading it.
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