Stop recycling

We should stop recycling. 

At least, we should stop calling it "recycling". It should just be business as usual.

We shouldn't talk about recycling, we should talk about decycling.

If "sustainability is the new normal," then the exception to the rule is not the disposal of material in a way that allows it to be recirculated into other economic activities, but in a way that removes it from the cycle of re-use in a sustainable circular economy irresponsibly to contribute to environmental degradation.

So when we are disposing of things, lets just assume we are "recycling," unless what we are doing is unsustainable, in which case call it what it is: decycling. The word that denotes a deviation from business as usual should be "decycling".

Words matter. They express and perpetuate assumptions and ways of thinking. When we call this activity "recycling" we implicitly assume it is the exception rather than the rule, extraordinary rather than normal, meritorious rather than quotidian, requiring a special word to describe it. This is a habit we need to break. It should be normal and everyday. It should not require the second thought we give it by using a word that assigns particularity to what should be mundane and unremarkable. 

If we have to talk about it we could refer to it simply as "cycling," if that did not invite ambiguity. 

The only realistic economy is circular. Linear economic models are elaborate fictions invented to account for the consequences of market failure and the general impoverishment caused by the narrow definition of wealth accommodated by their growth models. One might as well invoke deities or supernatural phenomena to explain the weather or a natural disaster. Linear economics placates imagined entities attributed with similar scope and prowess and ignores the real processes that determine our fortunes, even to the point of our ultimate and irrevocable ruin through climate change and environmental degradation.

The circulation of material in a sustainable manner should be assumed normal as only circular economics accommodates all influences that govern our material well-being. We should work on the assumption that everything is part of a cycle of continuous re-use. The creation of waste in a way that puts it beyond use and sequesters it from circulation should be what is considered delinquent and deserving of a special term: "decycling," the removal of material from economically valid cycles of re-use by disposing of it irresponsibly to the detriment of the environment.

So rather than encourage recycling, we should discourage decycling. Rather than take rubbish to a recycling point, we should refer to landfill and dumps as decycling points. Rather than think of the receptacles for materials for which we already have in place procedures for re-use as recycling bins, think of those receptacles for materials for which we have not yet put in place such procedures as decycling bins. 

Behaviour that degrades the environment should be seen as antisocial. That's the kind of thinking our language should reinforce. The concept of decycling helps to achieve this.