Recycling...

Recycling is one of the greatest social movements of the twenty first century... Everyone does it, thinks about doing it, or feels bad for not doing it. But is it a scam, a fir fie, a misnomer?

Firstly, recycling is actually the third action in the series of three...reduce, reuse, recycle! Yet we seem to forget about the importance of this trilogy.
1: If we reduce, there is less waste to be concerned with - a very important and fundamental issue for our heavily consumeristic society - a major initiative in itself.
2: If from what we have still purchased, after reducing, we reuse then there is less waste to be concerned with...
3: the final activity is, of course, recycling. And, yes, we seem to be quite ok with that. As long as there are programs or organizations happy to help us dispose of our waste in a feel good way.

However...
1: we don't reduce - I see gross amounts of packaging on the simplest of products. Even to purchase vegetables some people put them in plastic bags and then load them into plastic bags to get them home... and then store them in plastic bags and cook them in plastic containers and ... this is not good. Plastic is not the inert compound we think it is (more on this soon). And that is just the packaging... what about simple reducing the amount of goods purchased?

2: we don't reuse much - I see some efforts in elementary schools where some items are "handy" for art etc... but big time reusing... well again if the packaging is plastic - it is difficult to find an appropriate use for it (especially around food).

3: recycling - making money, energy costs to recycling the product, environmental impacts of recycling products... transport costs to recycling plants, storage of recycled product... all of these elements have an impact...

I am not saying that we shouldn't recycle, just that we need to practice all three actions - in the correct order and keep conscious as to the full implications of each step taken.

Another New Year and another fresh start...

So - I am back again and I have another, very different, plan...

After a week of presentations about the new (and rather exciting) Web 2.0 technologies I have reformulated my blog mission. I have been wondering for a while now, how I might best manage my academic musings; my environmental concerns and observations and my research needs and desires. A blog... this is the answer - for now anyway!!

So 2006 was amazing... The trip home was great - check out my photos (see Shutterfly link). I competed and passed all of my courses and I even had a Christmas/New Year trip to Cuba - to get the necessary sun, sand and ocean exposure - check out my photos (see Shutterfly link). Yep - I came back with some severe tan lines. Unfortunately, in the freezing north they are rapidly fading...

I am in my last semester of compulsory courses and really enjoying it and the other reading course I am taking. I sit in on an ecofeminism undergrad course and continue to be surprised by the thinking I have not been exposed to before. I teach a course to pre-service middle years teachers in Environmental Education - a great challenge. I am involved in an interesting research project looking at middle years student engagement in the Science Class. And I have finally managed to get a live organism project up and running in the Education Science Labs!!! YAY

In addition, I have finally succumbed to the temptation to be involved and walk my talk... I have taken on some interesting roles:

• Co-Chair of the International Commission - with NAAEE (North American Association of Environmental Education) www.naaee.org
• President of SOEEA (Saskatchewan Outdoor and Environmental Education Association) www.soeea.sk.ca
  
• Co-Chair of the Pre-Conference Research Symposium of the Trails to Sustainability Conference www.trailstosustainability.ca

So all in all - I am having fun!!