Recycle the Corruption

By Vicky Truter

We wanted to publish Jiggered on recycled paper, but it was vastly more expensive. Surprised, I investigated and discovered the myths wrapped up in the term. Recycled paper is a euphemism for paper made with a fractional percentage of recycled material, or that which is made from mill broke and recovered fibre. It is more accurately defined as a poorer quality of paper which is mostly not recycled at all.

The ‘recycling’ of paper and its green three-arrowed logo aptly serves as a symbol for a vicious cycle. It perpetuates greed under a facade of environmental friendliness. It serves as a symbol that is used on products to advertise the myth of the marriage between a money-based value system and the apparent good it can do for the environment.

I’m not talking about the environment as a loose concept that anyone with some kind of liberal guilt throws around without a second thought. I’m talking about the stabilising earth beneath your feet, the water you thirst for, the plant fibres you hunger for and the air you breathe when you remember that you need it.

While recycling can be an honourable endeavour, the metaphor makes for a good rant, especially when you consider the irony of the process. The damage done to the earth by the necessary chlorinated compounds used to bleach post-consumer fibre renders the attempt redundant. Paradoxically, we are taught that it is right and proper to recycle. A new irony for a new war on waste. Why do we farm forests to make paper when faster-growing and cheaper alternatives are available? Like hemp, the plant that we all have a convenient amnesia about. But it’s illegal to grow, despite it being a weed. It would negatively affect other farming industries. This is because they wouldn’t have as much money to be lobbying for their subsidising bills that make them even more money. All while your average would-be hemp grower makes no money at

all. This way, difficulties are curbed and an open market is demarcated with red tape. But when you’re a dick on a mission, ‘competition’ doesn’t have to be a word in your lexicon.

Recycling paper is more expensive because it takes more time and more labour. Because time has been equated with money, it ends up too expensive to afford what really needs to be remedied. The rich get richer while the poor get poorer. No trees get greener.