You have to hand it to Patagonia – no other company is quite so self-effacing. Ostensibly the above is a documentary about recycling. Astute viewers will notice that any time the phrase “less-impactful product” is used, b-roll of a Patagonia jacket being worn or made is the visual that accompanies that narration.
But, if the video were purely an ad, would UC Santa Barbara professor of industrial ecology, Roland Geyer, say things like buying a recycled product is great, but not buying a product at all is even better? Or, how a recycled product isn’t necessarily green, it’s just “less brown?” We don’t think so.
We know how wonky a documentary on recycling may sound, but if we can insist, this one is definitely worth your time. It pulls back the veil that recycling in the United States and other developed nations with similar infrastructure is a benevolent gesture.
In truth, only about 15 percent of material thrown in a blue recycle bin in the U.S. gets recycled. And around the world, only nine percent of plastic actually gets recycled.
In other words, recycling is a better behavior than not recycling, but not using plastic in the first place is even better. Consumption is the problem, and buying fewer things that last longer, according to Patagonia, is the way we as a society must reprogram our consumer behavior to minimize our impact.
