The Myth of the 3 Rs Sustainabilitys Road Ahead

[Applause]

on january 28

1969 um an offshore oil well

off the coast of the university of uh

santa barbara

um i think it was operated by uh union

only

blew up i told you it wasn’t to be fun

um

three million gallons of voids filled up

killing about 10 000 sea birds marine

animals

and such i mean mrs liga

described the scene as

the bottom of the ocean had exploded

look at that image for a second the

ocean was boiling

around that time um u.s senator uh

gaylord nixon

he was uh traveling uh for a flight uh

for a meeting

on a flight from aaa los angeles to san

francisco

and he had to fly over this 800 square

mile oil slick

and he looked out of his airplane window

and

onto that devastation that was unfolded

below him

and he had an idea stepping back

around that time the vietnam war was

going on

and what the us government was doing was

it was sending out these representatives

to local communities

and such to hold these community

engagement forums and downloads which

they called

teach ins and it was basically to

educate the public and encourage them to

reduce their consumption and save on

resources and energy

and such so senator nelson had this idea

that why don’t we have

this day where across the country

we’d have these teachings specifically

at college campuses

where people will talk about the

importance of

conserving the environment

all of this led him senator nixon

on april 22 1970 a year later

to create the world’s first birthday

i’m sure all of us have heard of earth

day now countries across the globe

market in their own

especially unique ways and it’s become

part of our cultural ethos as well

it although the origins of the phase are

not entirely

uh clear but it is widely accepted that

it was during that first birthday that

this phrase

the three hours recycled reduced reuse

came into being

i think i was in the fourth grade

when i was first taught this phrase at

school and uh

like a lot of 90’s kids you know it kind

of became my title

it we um it he believed in it

you know

the most effective lies are the simplest

ones because they’re catchy

they’re attractive in their simplicity

seductive

almost this was the same

but it would take me another 15 years of

my professional journey

before i realized just how destructive

this myth this lie of the three hours

really was and how corporations

and vested interests had taken hold of a

very pure motive

with a very pure origin story and had

twisted it

according to their own motives of profit

and gain

i have been working in the field of

sustainability and energy

for most of my dark life while that’s

not a lot of gears um

still young um but i have done things

you know and i’ve been across the world

i’ve been in this movement for some time

now i’ve

worked i’ve been lucky enough to work at

high levels in large corporate

organizations traditional bureaucratic

firms

i have started my own company tried to

have

impact from the outside from outside the

corporate machine

i’ve been a part of a large number of

environmental organizations across the

world trying to have

just trying to have some impact in any

shape or way possible

my work has been awarded internationally

i’ve been accoladed i’ve been honored

such as today

but i stand here today for you with this

great and humbling realization that i

haven’t been able to have one iota of

impact

i believe i strongly believe that

the reason the needy moves so slowly in

terms of having an impact

in in my industry and i i think i talk

for a lot of people who work

in this trend other lives

that have been so strategically placed

in our path

that obstruct the view of the truth

i don’t believe that i can start having

impact in sustainability

until i have a constructive discussion

with you about what those lies are

and before we start dismantling them we

cannot get on a road

to a real sustainable future so let’s

take one of those guys today

favorite recycling you turn on the tv

you watch any news network or deep talk

show or tv show

uh whenever the topic of sustainability

comes on and

you know you’ll always see these talking

heads uh this popular refrain

is this very popular advice hope you can

just recycle it

sounds like a good idea let’s explore

that um

recycling is nearly a national pastime

in germany

it is so embedded in the national

consciousness of germany they’re so

proud of their system

it’s very strict it’s very good it’s

very efficient like all german things

they have a blue bin for people they

have i think green and brown

for five degrees i think they have

yellow for plastic and black for the

rest of their trash

and in fact they’re so proud of it it’s

honestly um if you read their children’s

books like you know the popular teens

for children and school and everything

these colorways actually make an

appearance in popular gym and folklore

as well

and ap they have done a better job than

any of the other countries that i know

of

the world economic forum in 2017 hated

germany as the global recycling

champions

but expert studies have been conducted

and it suggests that

there’s something missing there germany

reports for plastic packaging

germany reports a 50 recycling rate

expert suggests

it’s closer to 30 that’s a big gap

when you really think about how much

trash a country like germany produces

um germany produces i think three

million tons of plastic packaging waste

every year so you know

my point is why did a country that

really championed the recycling practice

in the world how

did it feel so badly because even if we

take them at their work which is 50

it’s kind of odd don’t you think like

when you take a water bottle and you put

it in the recycling bin you don’t expect

half of it to be recycled you expect all

of

so what’s going on there right

there’s a lot of problems there um some

social some side effects some

technological

some business let’s talk about one of

the major ones

um for a lay person uh

so let’s take an example i see a plastic

water bottle right there

and i’m sure if you look at it there’s

going to be a recycling sign on it

right so consumers but

that the bottle the body of the body is

recyclable but the cap

i can assure you is not right

do they tell us that when they mark

their products with recyclable stamps

and they

market it as such no okay let’s talk

about pizza

um yeah this is the only good part of my

talk uh

now how many of you have had pizza in

the last week or so

okay um

but um these are comes in watch a

cardboard box

right that’s fine that’s that’s

that’s recyclable right sorry to bust

your bubble

because cardboard that is contaminated

with food waste or oil or trees

is not recyclable in fact when the pizza

comes to you and you open it and the

cheese

is sticking to the lid it’s already

non-recyclable

there’s nothing you can do as an answer

so

my point is

instead of actually individually sorting

through each piece of trash that they

get in the trillions of tons of trash

that they get

recycling plants and it’s cheaper and

easier for them

to throw the whole thing out rather than

individually sold through these pieces

of cash

right in fact the truth is

i think i might be wrong about this but

i think 79

of majority of all the plastic that has

ever been produced

i’ll just take a second i pause here

just imagine that since plastics are

going to be introduced as a man-made

material

really 79 of that has not been recycled

it’s lying in a landfill somewhere it’s

been tossed out into the world

into a seed into our horse

and yet companies market themselves as

me

anyway um let’s let’s dive backwards

i’ll move on to um

i’ll move on to something something more

it’s another story it’s a little stupid

um you might be asking at this point

then

if if plastic recycling is such a sham

it’s such a pass then

why is it so popular why does it have

such good pr uh well

let’s go back to the 1970s during that

time when this phrase came out

the recycle reviews uh movement came out

a lot of money

and a lot of effort was put in by a lot

of plastic

manufacturing companies into generating

good weight

and creating a good image for plastic

recycling because

that they realized early on would give

them a very good method

of pushing more plastic products into

the system

there was a competition aimed at kids

really um

in the u.s um around that time

where uh you know it happened locally at

the community level neighborhood

where uh the kids who would design the

best

receptacle or like like a trash can best

design trash can

um so that the neighborhood people would

come and dispose of their plastic waste

so it could be recycled

uh they that they would win a price or

some money or something like that

fantastic right getting kids to do

something good for the environment

good for the world heartwarming story

until you realize what’s behind that

competition

it was funded by this project which was

called a bag’s life

which i think is a fun one about the

movie

and it was funded by uh

american progressive bag alliance which

is a lobbying group

which uh funnels millions of dollars

into lobbying against

efforts to reduce plastic packaging in

the industry

a fast corporation with a lot of money

you can use of something to target

children for their own

profit does that sound familiar

something about the tackle of the stock

um hey let’s move on

let’s move on to the second part

[Music]

keep it simple the way we consume today

and the way

products are manufactured today there

just isn’t a lot that you can reuse

think about it has everyone come across

a mother daily milk pouch right every

single one yeah

same recipe how do you use that

how does a common everyday man or woman

reuse

a mother daddy or any brand nail pouch

that’s once when it’s been cut open and

mobilizes

for that matter how do you use an empty

hairspray hand

or a deodorant can now

how do you reuse the energy that you

just spent flying from mumbai today

okay before calculating this correctly

uh i think you would have to actually

recycle

14 000 uh plastic water bottles just

like that to offset the energy that you

spend on

it from mumbai forty thousand uh

one per day is 365 a year do the math

long lives uh anyway

also the stuff that you can’t you

shouldn’t reuse like the plastic water

bottles again

start of our show today ladies and

gentlemen

over time overuse if you keep reusing

and keep rewashing them refilling them

what happens is that there’s normal wear

and tear in the molecular structure and

it breaks apart and it reaches chemicals

harmful chemicals

like bpa uh might have heard of it into

the water and

you said epa has been linked to cancer

it’s been linked to uh developing

disorders injury

so how do you use that after knowing

that

okay i just

i just have to come back to this over

the course of my career

i realized that there’s only one one

true r this just leaves us with one true

hour

which is reduced

the reason i say that is

we we just cannot recycle

or reuse our way out of this mess that

we created for ourselves

you know we have to we have to reduce

the consumption we have to reduce our

footprint and our impact on the planet

it is the only road to a sustainable

future

we simply cannot rely on the other two

hours

the people don’t exist or their lives

which actually cause more harm than good

let’s do away with another lie while

we’re at it your team will always tell

you that oh

uh reducing consumption that’s against

development right you need to find

better alternatives

uh you’re not really developed if you’re

looking at you’re going back into the

past you’re using less stuff

modern stuff is cool it’s good we are

currently consuming

1.7 earths worth of resources

let me ask you this question if a man

came up to you and said

um however much backpack balance you

have in your bank you need to spend 1.7

times of that otherwise you’re not

developed

it’s safe to say that that man doesn’t

have your best interest that part

or you know there you are i’m sorry is

this a joke if there’s any banking

lawyers here don’t sue me

in there um anyway

moving on the point is right

we are at a precipice in in our journey

right

and and ingenious marketing

decipher social campaigns have been

hijacked by these companies

with a lot of resources and you know

they’ve shifted the blame of pollution

tackling the energy prices finding

sustainable alternatives

onto you the consumers all of this why

mind you 71

of all the greenhouse global gas

emissions since 1988 can be tracked down

to just

100 companies in the world what you not

me

then but they’ve made us feel like we’re

the villains because we used

a plastic bottle but they they create a

world where there is no alternative so

i i submit to you it is time

to see through their lives it is time

where we push the responsibility back

where it belongs

to do that the first step would be to

take our money away from them

it would be to reduce our consumption

it’s the only way reduce your

consumption of unsustainable materials

ask them to think of a better way to

market their materials make better

materials make better products make

less products but better products in

2018

i was having a great time i was at a

great place in my life

i had a great high flying corporate job

i was

uh i think i just got put onto the host

list uh

speaking i have money a good life i was

in the u.s

one fine day i woke up and i quit my job

and i started my company i tried to do

something outside

why because i realized that i could not

live another day

where i was blind and i was playing into

a system i was supporting a system

that left the world a worse place than i

found it

i could not be a part of that but in the

journey since then

i’ve realized two things

the first thing is that i do not miss

microsoft outlook

horrible piece of software please do

something about it

second thing i can’t do this on myself

right which is why i’m here i’m here to

talk to you

i hope that the next time you’re talking

with your friends and families you tell

them these stories

you develop in these facts i hope that

the next time uh

this brand advertisement comes on

television and they talk about how

they’re turning green because their

products are not recyclable i hope you

go

the bubbles are from inside you and you

go lies

i hope you do that i’ll do this by

myself

because the first step is to kill the

lies

because when you take the lies you see

the truth the horrifying

the scary disgusting truth of the

situation in the state of sustainability

right now

which is being masked over so well so

beautifully

i hope you see the truth

because the truth no matter how scary no

matter how depressing

unfeelingly unflinchingly always gives

rise to one thing

which is hope hope that we can change

hope that we can reduce our consumption

it’s about hope

it’s about talking about it raising the

hope

this is the hope is beautiful the truth

however inconvenient

leads to a beautiful thing it is hope

alone that pushes the human race forward

since time a more immemorial

the theme for today is where are we

headed

i do believe that once we’re done with

all their eyes

once we see through all their eyes we

can honestly say

forward towards an actually sustainable

future

thank you so much