Enlightenment? Or just the economy?
New Yorkers are throwing less stuff away now than they were three years ago. That’s according to Steve Cohen on his blog at The Observer. Apparently, we’re down to 51,250 tons per week, from 54,205 tons per week in 2005. This while the city’s population continues to grow. So are we dawning on a new age of environmental consciousness? Cohen says yes, but there could be an alternative explanation. An article in The Washington Post about lowered recent intake at landfills says the decline in trash could simply be because the economic downturn has forced people to make do with less. If you buy that, it’s more like we’re experiencing a depression-era-like push to use and re-use. Phenomena like this make it hard for us to know what to celebrate.
(via sustaiNYC and unconsumption)
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