This semester, OU’s Office of Sustainability launched an initiative to promote recycling at OU. Signs around campus encourage us to “recycle like a champion” by keeping track of our “progress.” While its motivations are almost certainly good, this push to recycle is not the best way to promote sustainability.

Recycling is the most popular form of “green” expression because it requires the least amount of effort. There are recycling bins all over campus, and the city of Norman uses tax money to provide us with the convenience of curb side recycling. Recycling has become so easy and accessible it has almost become unacceptable not to recycle. People of all walks of life have picked up colored bins and started sorting their trash.

In fact, recycling is so common that more Americans recycle than vote!

The problem with recycling is it’s not as profitable or as environmentally beneficial as one might think. Due to its high costs and low profits, recycling programs are subsidize with our university fees and city taxes.

As for the environment, critiques claim that many recycling processes create more environmental damage than they prevent. The basis for this argument is that in order to clean the paper and reform the plastic, factories have to use harsh chemicals which eventually find their way into the environment. Others argue against recycling by citing the huge energy footprint of the recycling plants.

Despite all the critiques, recycling has several benefits. The strongest arguments for recycling are that it conserves resources and space. Recycling advocates often cite the example of aluminum cans. In the case of aluminum, recycling saves energy and reduces the environmental degradation that occurs from bauxite extraction. They also assert that recycling reduces the size of landfills by providing an alternative.

Recycling has its harms and benefits, which is why it should be used responsibly.

One of the most common mantras of the “green” movement is “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. This is a very simple and effective approach to help the environment. The problem with “going green” is that most people overlook the first two steps.

Reducing consumption is the first and most beneficial way to help the environment. The plain looking stickers on people’s water bottles, notebooks or cars remind us to “use less stuff.” Though they might smell faintly of patchouli, those people have a good point. The best way to keep things in nature is to reduce demand for them.

The best way to use less is to buy less. It can be hard to resist our capitalist urge to consume, but it is necessary. Making shopping lists before leaving the house, resisting impulse buying and using rags and cloth rather than paper towels are all excellent ways to reduce consumption.

Another way to reduce demand is the next part of the mantra: reusing. When we think about reusing, our mind wonders back to elementary school art class where we made “art” out of bottle caps, tin cans, and toilet paper rolls. Despite these preconceptions, reusing “trash” has many adult world implications.

Whether it is paper, bottles, cans, plastic containers, or jars, most of the things we choose to recycle do not have to leave our homes to get a new lease on life. Empty jars can be used as cups, drink shakers, or in place of expensive store bought bottles. Plastic containers (like the ones for sour cream, cottage cheese, hummus, or butter spreads) can be used just like store bought containers. Plastic bottles and cans make excellent dry storage containers. Even paper can be used again by literally turning over the page. The best part of reusing waste is its cost: nothing.

Unlike recycling, reduction and reuse saves people money. Buying less and using things we would otherwise discard is not only environmentally responsible, it is a good fiscal practice. By reducing consumption and reusing “waste” one can save green-lands and green-backs.

Turing to recycling first makes about as much sense as putting your underwear over your pants and fastening a belt around your head. Like Quailman, recycling makes us feel like we are effortlessly saving the world.

In reality, there are better ways to save the environment. There is a place for recycling in environmental preservation; it comes after reduction and reuse.