Today we often hear and use the word «ecology» ourselves. We want to dress and eat eco-friendly, work and play… What does this require? And what of what is required do we have?
What does it mean to be eco-friendly, how well do we succeed and why do we need it — for us or for someone else? Does conscious consumption depend on income level? What habits will improve your life? To discuss these issues, we invited four experts in different areas of ecology to the editorial office. And on the table at which everyone gathered, they put bottles of water … and, as it turned out, they were mistaken. Much remains to be learned!
Daria Alekseeva: You have plastic bottles on the table, it’s not environmentally friendly, and it’s better that we don’t use them!
Psychology: Why? The bottles are already produced anyway, but can the plastic be recycled?
YES.: Yes, recycling plastic is better than throwing it away, but the ideal option is not to use it at all. Recycling is not a panacea. Firstly, a bottle can become a bottle again six times, and then crumble into microplates that cannot be separated from other garbage and recycled. Secondly, water and electricity, valuable resources, will be spent on processing. Of course, now these bottles have already been produced. But if we, the consumers, move away from plastic, beverage manufacturers will lose sales and realize that it is better to switch to packaging that can be recycled many times. But the best garbage is the one that didn’t form. Nobody likes landfills.
70 million tons of garbage per year is buried in the ground. And it is in our power to reduce this figure by sorting waste
Mikhail Zamarin: I’ll add the numbers: if a plastic bottle is not sent for recycling, then it is buried in the ground, where it decomposes from 400 to 1000 years! And most recently, all household garbage was taken to the landfill. Now, after the garbage reform, this is done after sorting in order to reduce the volume of «burial». But at processing plants, they sort by hand, they skip a lot, so anyway, a lot of what could be used ends up in landfills.
And even such factories are not enough! By 2030, the national project «Ecology» promises to build 200 plants with automated sorting, and now there are no more than ten. This means that 95% of all waste ends up in the landfill — 70 million tons per year. And we can change that if we just sort our household garbage!
And yet, not everyone is ready to sort the garbage. Will environmental activists convince us, or should the state take action?
YES.: Violent measures, no matter who resorts to them, are ineffective, because they cause protest. But the state can create conditions for a more environmentally friendly life. For example, if there are simply no single-use plastic packaging in stores, as in Germany, where it is prohibited. Eco-friendly behavior is also encouraged in various ways: reusable shoppers, a bicycle instead of a car. The question is in the design of the environment, in the urban infrastructure.
But even where there is none, everyone can compensate for their ecofootprint by returning something useful to the environment. There are no separate waste containers in the city — you can install a disposer under the sink, this device crushes the waste, and they flow down the drain. No need to worry about what to throw away. Plus, biogas is made from such waste, and it turns out that we participate in the generation of clean energy.
MZ: There is an eternal dilemma: egg or chicken, what comes first, conscious consumption or infrastructure for its implementation? Imagine, we will wait for two hundred processing plants: “Everything is ready, sort and bring it!” — and immediately there will be a lot of questions: what, where, how? There is no habit. Therefore, the involvement of citizens in eco-culture and the construction of factories should go in parallel. Habits are developed over the years, ideally they are instilled from childhood.
Who and how can instill such environmental awareness?
Irina Pudova: It is necessary to involve the media, which will arouse interest in this topic and help promote the ideas of eco-activists. Not only television, newspapers, magazines, but also TikTok, Clubhouse. If a teenager sees on the social network how his favorite blogger said: «Don’t buy a tetra pack, because it’s not cool,» he will do just that. The sphere of influence is different, someone has the whole country, and someone has their own children, and this is also important! Habits are born in the family.
Vitold Yasvin: How do we perceive what surrounds us? Environment and space are not the same thing. Space is an objective category, environment is subjective. We can be in the same space, but in a different environment. Example: the same locality for one is a hometown, childhood memories, and for another it is a backwater. Which of the two do you think will take care of this place? If we are in our environment, we care about what is happening around.
How to tame space by making it our environment?
V.Ya.: Make it beautiful. Imagine that the containers are not the same as they are now, but colorful, attractive, and a bright car comes to pick them up. It’s the same in the house: if a bucket and a mop are under the stairs in a dark corner, no one wants to wash the floor. The teacher Janusz Korczak wrote about this, and I checked it with the schoolchildren: the buckets were painted with flowers, and a queue lined up from those who wanted to clean up.
YES.: For starters, I propose to abandon the word «garbage» and replace it with «waste». Because when we say «garbage», we imagine a smelly landfill. But when we understand that an apple core will be processed into biofuel, a milk carton into an office, it ceases to be a dump and becomes something useful.
V.Ya.: Pay attention to one more word — «should». It is used so often in a conversation about ecology! Must teach, instill, force. This is perceived as pressure and therefore does not work. And it works through the word “I want”, which is associated with the satisfaction of needs. We overestimate our rationality and ability to be guided by considerations of duty. In fact, we are rather irrational creatures, we like to play. Aesthetics is more important for us than ethics.
It is important not to fall into eco-religiosity and fanaticism
In other words, when ecology becomes beautiful and exciting, then we will deal with it …
MZ: But at the same time, if we take the hierarchy of needs according to Maslow’s pyramid, then the desire for aesthetics and harmony is in last place in it. In the regions, the average family lives paycheck to paycheck. And when their basic basic needs are not closed — to be full and safe, these are only the first and second steps in Maslow’s pyramid, what kind of garbage, ecology and nature protection can you think of!
It turns out that a sufficiently high standard of living is needed for an ecological existence?
YES.: I disagree! Children are interested regardless of how much their parents earn and in what region they live. Our foundation works in Rostov the Great, and schoolchildren there are no less active and curious than in Moscow. We give them tours, and they are excited to see how a waste rag can be turned into a plastic pen. This is how the understanding of the importance of sorting waste comes through interest, play, competition, and a reward system.
MZ: Yes, everyone has access to information, regardless of the financial condition of the family. But let’s imagine that an average family with an income of 15 thousand rubles came to the store to buy milk. In front of them is a plastic bottle and a Tetra Pak bag. What to choose? They know that a bottle is better in this case, because plastic can be recycled, and tetrapack is a multi-layer packaging: cardboard, foil and polyethylene — they are not so easy to separate. But even with a high level of awareness and understanding of such nuances, the question of price will be decisive. I know how consumer choice is made in the regions. Two rubles matter!
There is a choice — but at the same time it is not, how is it?
V.Ya.: I would like to recall the beginning of our conversation: Daria mentioned conditions and opportunities. And these are not synonyms at all: conditions are what is outside of me. Opportunities are what I have. And conditions do not always coincide with opportunities. Now Michael described just such a case.
YES.: I think it’s important not to fall into eco-religiosity and fanaticism. If you are seriously concerned about the problem of conscious consumption, you should not try to do it somehow extreme, unhygienic in relation to yourself. No need to immediately take on sorting seven types of plastic — most likely, we will get tired and quickly disappointed. It is much more useful to start by disassembling the closet and understanding what we wear and what was bought in vain, draw a conclusion and next time not buy unnecessary things.
You can go with the children on an excursion to the waste sorting plant, show them how it all works. Just choose for yourself some simple tactics that easily fit into our lives. And gradually they will become part of a new philosophy of life. By the way, the eco-friendly option of shopping in a second-hand store will save you money — things are cheaper there when compared with prices in shopping centers. Sometimes saving can be a nice bonus to conscious consumption.
We talked about the environment, but we ourselves are also part of it. How does an environmentally friendly attitude to oneself correlate with caring for nature?
I.P.: They are inseparable: how can you take care of yourself while at the same time destroying your environment? Therefore, in our Healthy Nation project, we will definitely talk about attention to ourselves, our health and good habits that fit into the eco-concept.
YES.: The style of consumption is reflected in our attitude towards ourselves, and vice versa. Probably everyone wants the best for themselves, more correct. Attention to oneself gives rise to questions: what do I eat, what do I wear, what do I use. For example, activists of the Second Wind Foundation are often asked about clothes, this is the main profile of our activity. And the answers you get gradually change your behavior. You begin to understand that you don’t need some things in principle, and thoughts appear: “Why did I buy all this at all? It would be better if I took a subscription to the gym with this money and took care of my health.
Everything will fall into place if «I have to» is replaced with «I want»
MZ: I want to continue the thought of Daria. Questions are an impulse to search for some truth, truth or untruth, anything, it is a way out of the stagnant situation in which we now find ourselves. And the more often we begin to think: “why, why is it so, and how is it possible, and is it worth it”, the faster we will come to an environmentally conscious society. And you need to start with the most elementary, with simple things: what kind of garbage can be recycled and what can not, why organic waste cannot be mixed with plastic … Let’s ask.
V.Ya.: It is very important not to separate ourselves from the world, to realize that each of us is a part of it. And then there will be no «I have to.» Will: I want to live with dignity, be proud of myself, and for this I act responsibly. We know that to deceive an enemy is a feat, and to deceive one’s own is a betrayal and a crime. And everything falls into place when we consider the world close, dear, perceive it as a partner. And then ecological modesty or ecological decency reinforces our self-esteem.