The Nature of Waste

Did native North Americans have garbage dumps?  I don’t think so.  I recall learning all about how every part of an antelope or bison was used for something by natives — and nothing at all was wasted.  And why was that?  Was it out of a reverence for nature?  Or out of respect for the gods?  I used to think that, since reverence and respect for animals is a feature of native religions.  But I think there was probably a more mundane overriding reason for it.  It had to do with investment and risk.

When natives went on a hunt, there could be a lot of risk involved, and certainly a lot of effort and work.  The animals they brought down were not penned domestic livestock there for the taking.  Some of these were large wild beasts (bison, wild boar, etc.) with real potential for harming the hunters.  Everyone knew the risks and everyone knew someone who met a bad end owing to an unfortunate encounter.  The risks were real and tangible and were not taken lightly.  Owing to all of these factors, any kill was highly valued.  To not make the utmost use out of the entire animal would have been an insult to the people who put their literal lives on the line to procure it.  If this were to happen, of course, a hunter would be far less likely to share their kill the next time.  So there was a balance struck there whose natural consequence was a zero-waste society — a society in balance with the rest of the natural world, taking only what was needed, and using all of it.  I think this was less about respect for nature than it was about the recognition of the dangers of procuring food.  We don’t have that same perspective today.  Not even close.  Our technology allows us to sidestep the requirements of such a system and exist out of balance with nature (for a time — see my article Ishmael revisited).

Comparing our modern society with that of pre-colonial native North-Americans, there are a couple of primary differences that jump out at me:

1. Animal domestication and mechanized livestock farming has eliminated the dangers that were once faced by prehistoric hunters and has reduced the human (bodily) investment required to procure food, thus placing no moral imperative on the consumer to utilize without waste;
2. Since the advent of industrialization, consumers are now many steps removed from the food procurement process, often residing on an entirely different continent from the source.  Consumers now don’t know where their food originates, who procures it, nor what risks they took in order to produce it;

I think there is a direct correspondence between perceived risk or investment in a thing, and the amount of waste produced by the consumer or user of the thing, so long as they are aware of those factors.  I’ve been using food as an example, but it’s valid for anything you care to name.  For example, if you were to spend a day building a bicycle from its component parts, you are far more likely to take good care of it than if you purchased it pre-built.  You invested energy, time, and smashed knuckles into that bike, and you don’t want all of that to have been a waste by leaving it outside for the winter and letting it rust.

Of course, we can’t all build or make things from scratch.  Pain and energy can also be exacted indirectly, through monetary cost.  Something we spend $500 on is less likely to be wasted or mistreated than something we spend $5 on.  Following this idea to it’s logical conclusion, I think it would be safe to say that any reduction in cost of items translates directly into increased waste of those items.  The corollary is that items whose prices go up or remain high are wasted less.  The interesting thing here, is that the success of the free market system is predicated on the requirement that prices always be driven down by the constant introduction of new efficiencies that reduce the cost of manufacture.  That includes such cost-saving measures as using cheaper materials, replacing people with machines, and replacing high-paid people (read North America, Europe), with low paid people (read Asia, Africa).  Without the constant introduction of efficiencies that drive down the cost of production, our economic system as it exists would actually grind to a halt and collapse.  This was a startling revelation to me when I read about it in Properity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet.

So herein lies a conundrum:  in order to decrease waste, we have to stop driving prices down or even deliberately bring prices up.  Guess what happens then?  Collapse.   Unless I’m missing something (and it’s entirely possible that I am — any economists in the audience?), our entire system is engineered in such a way that creating the motivation to waste (i.e. by driving prices down) is the natural consequence of creating efficiency — which is required in order to make the system work.

Is it just me?  Or is this completely bonkers?