Futility of recycling

Among the ideas that sound really great but fail miserably practically, recycling has to be at the very top.

Recycling requires individual members of a family to sort out recyclable items properly. The trash collector to collect and store recycled items the right way. Sorting facility to sort out recycled items and businesses to commit to using recycled plastic without impacting financial and operational stewardship.

Lesson #1: If the success of your product depends on multiple stakeholders doing the right thing, your product is doomed.

It is no surprise that, per this article, only 9% of all plastics are recycled. Any one of the stakeholders in the recycling chain can lead to poor outcomes.

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/whopping-91-percent-plastic-isnt-recycled/

Lesson #2: Not all metrics are same.

Recyclable and Recycled are two different metrics. Most of the existing promises are in the recyclable category because it is a lot easier for a business to make this promise rather than ensure the recycled metric. As a product manager and as a consumer, the onus will be on you to focus and prioritize the metrics that truly matter, rest are an eye wash.

Lesson #3: Build the right product

Instead of recycable, biodegradable will have lot more positive impact on the environment. Regardless of the individual choices, the "stuff" will simply dissolve into the environment. The friction of multiple independent decision-making that ails recycling will no longer be a challenge.  

Lesson #4: There is always a middle ground

Between these two extremes of "sounds great but we are not setup for this" and "too far in the future" ideas, Bob the builder's slogan of "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle" is a practical compromise. Reduce and Reuse are local decisions and don't need everyone in the chain to do the right thing for the solution to work. 

#productmanagement #recycling #innovation