Six R's

For years, we've heard a log about "reduce, reuse, recycle". Actually, we've heard a lot about "recycle", and a bit about the other two. At least on a cultural level, reducing and reusing seem a bit unAmerican, or at least unMiddleClassAmerican.

Which is why, in conversations with students, I've started emphasizing a larger set of R's. Six, to be precise. The familiar three are still in place, and we talk about them in order of importance:

Rethink - Why are reducing and reusing pretty much off the table? What is it important that we do, or not do? A sense of personal priorities can be tremendously empowering, but only if those priorities are explicit and well-founded. It might be a bit over the top to insist that each of us owes it to society to adopt a certain priority scheme, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that each of us owes it to herself to know what her priority scheme is. We each operate based on a priority scheme, and if we didn't think it through ourselves, it's a pretty good bet that someone else (probably someone with a big advertising budget) did.

Resolve - This is meaningless if you haven't first rethought, but pretty obvious if you have. Once your personal priorities are clear to you, resolve to take them seriously. Resolve to act on your principles. Resolve to be an individual. If you end up resolving to express your individuality by drinking the same beer and wearing the same branded clothing as everyone else, no harm done. (You were likely going to make those choices, even without the rethinking part.) But if you discover that what you really value lies somewhere other than being a mainstream consumer, resolve to act that way.

Reduce - A lot of what people buy, they don't really value. They buy it without thinking, almost as a reflexive action. (Can anyone say "subliminal"?) And maybe it's hard to pass by attractively displayed, widely advertised product if you don't have an explicit reason NOT to buy it. But if you've rethought and resolved, it's a lot easier. Buy what you need. Buy what's important for you. But don't buy just to buy. It's surprising how much less each of us spends, this way.

Re-source - When you buy fewer things, you can think more about where (and how) you get each one. If impulse buying short-circuits the "do I need it?" question, it even shorter-circuits the question of product source. But if you only buy stuff that's high on your personal priority list, taking the time to think about where it comes from -- and how it gets to you -- becomes both easy and immensely satisfying. Think about buying some product that's been remanufactured, or previously used, or made from recycled materials. It's pretty common to find that you get more satisfaction from one well-considered purchase than from a large number of impulse buys. And you'll probably end up with better quality stuff, which is important if you intend to . . .

Reuse - It's easy to forget, but our whole pattern of repeat consumption (planned obsolescence, low cost, rapid disposal and replacement) has only come into being in the past half-century or so. Certainly for rural folks (and before World War I, farming was the most common occupation in the USA), a trip to market occurred no more often than weekly. Go another century back, and the only opportunity to buy anything other than local products (good, but limited) might come at an annual fair. Up through the middle of the 20th century, the pattern was to buy goods that would last, take care that they did last, and then pass them down to the next generation. Having a few well-made possessions was all most folks wanted or needed. Frivolous purchasing was the mark of the truly wealthy -- of people with '"more dollars than sense". Using, and using again, still makes sense.

Recycle - And yes, at the end of a product's useful life, it can take on another purpose. Well-made goods, even when they eventually wear out, can be repurposed -- to my mind, the highest form of recycling. The final round of repurposing may be as a feedstock into some remanufacturing process, but what we commonly think of as "recycling" is pretty much the least beneficial form of the least (still positively) beneficial activity. It's a virtue, but by itself it won't offset the vice of needless consumption.

Young adults -- college and university students -- are at a stage of life where they're naturally open to rethinking. American consumer culture is designed to discourage individual thought, but schools are often able to overcome that (at least temporarily). So part of my challenge is to leverage the openness of students' minds and get them to think seriously about what's important to them. And then how to take themselves, and their priorities, seriously.

There may, of course, be more R's than the six laid out here. But I'm thinking that the move from three to six is a pretty good start.