I Have a Dream, Too

No, it’s nothing like that of the late, great Dr. Martin Luther King. Not even close. But it’s something that has been on my mind since I was a teenager. And that was a very (very!) long time ago. It’s about healing the earth.

My vision is this:

I would like to see recycling become the third largest industry in America behind manufacturing and farming. I believe we need to start building huge recycling centers where robots, machines and people separate garbage from recyclable materials and send the recyclables directly down a shoot into a recycling factory.

The problem with today’s recycling system is that hardly anything gets recycled. There is more recyclable material still thrown away today, in my opinion, than is getting recycled. Nobody recycles at parties. My gym doesn’t bother recycling. Even where I work the building doesn’t recycle. And I live in a recycling state. I would guess we’re probably recycling about 10 percent of what we should be today.

Also, it’s rumored that, in many towns the two trucks – one for trash and one for recycling – actually unload their wares at the same dump when no one is looking. So while, on the outside, it looks like we’re doing a good job of it as a country, I think we’re actually doing a lousy job of it, and until we reach 100 percent recycling of all recyclable materials, we’re not going to make any progress with global warming.

There’s money to be made in recycling if we treat it like a business and it would be if it was run by engineers and scientists. Also, I think there should be a ‘chief recycling officer’ on the U.S. president’s team.

Recycled materials should go into literally every single thing that is produced, provided it has durabilty and strength. There could be a nationwide invention contest where people try to come up with new ideas and the best ones win, I don’t know, maybe a business contract, or a full college education. And if we were serious about doing it, then the cost of recycled materials and recycling production would come down.

If it was the third largest industry in America, it would pay well and offer great benefits and job advancement. College graduates would have job priority and the business model would be based on project management and problem solving, not boring assembly lines. There would be research and development (R&D) divisions in every state to constantly look at ways to improve both manufacturing and recycling.

Also, every recycling center would have a thrift shop where things that were thrown out but fixable would be pulled off the line and repaired and refurbished, and then sold in these cute little boutiques at the recycling centers all around the country.

Anyway, that’s my dream. It really excites me and I may not see it in my lifetime, but I would like to think that someday, this just might come true.

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