The 4R's and the 2W's

      An aspect of Samantha MacBride’s reconsidering of recycling that I find entertaining and interesting is the historical aspect of her argument. She did not only analyze the conditions today in regards to recycling and environmental conscientiousness, but journeyed back in time to explore the paths by which our society arrived at its present locus. MacBride followed the pickers and scrappers of yesteryear and told, in an abbreviated fashion, their stories. The connection between the corporations and the recycling initiatives is evermore apparent as this class continues, with there seeming to be a very blatant correlation between the environmental initiatives enacted by legislatures around the globe and the profitable plans presented by big business. 

      But a facet of the lineage of environmentalism that I find even more intriguing is the relationship between the World Wars and the movements that occurred in their wake. MacBride analyzed the demand of global markets and the impact those had on conservation. The lessening availability of virgin imports due to wartime constraints led to an enlarged market for reused and recyclable materials. Shortages such as the one for raw materials used to create paper and textiles plagued the newly industrialized US, with embargoes set by nations under heavy military constraints limiting supply. This caused a great tipping of the prices of many commodities and resources, pushing the industries and the government to seek out solutions to these quickly dematerializing scenarios. Americans were called upon to hearken back to the colonial spirit embedded in each of them and utilize the items at hand to survive the wartime strain. This is also, as MacBride asserts, the period in which Americans develop this insatiable can-do attitude, one which often prioritizes morale boosting activism over pragmatic progression. 

      In an excerpt from writer and historian Jacob Darwin Hamblin’s Arming Mother Nature, similar themes are explored, with his text analyzing aspects of the World Wars such as the way in which resources became instigators of war, citing Columbia University geography prof. George T. Renner as proposing that World War II was, on some deep level, “the result of a major challenge to Anglo-American dominant control of the world’s natural resources.” Investigating environmental determinism, Hamblin suggests this idea that if the world’s resources continue to dwindle then they could be cause for further armed conflict in the future. Hamlin also discusses the way in which resource networks were reorganized and established during this era of warring nations, creating an entirely new chain of distribution to provide for the war effort which remains to this day. An even more massive transformation was the one pushed upon Brazil by the US to offset the US’s loss of rubber due to the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia. This transition involved the movement of 52,000 Brazilian workers and their families into an area of rubber tree plenty, where, by the end of the conflict, 23,000 of them were dead or missing. Not the prettiest side effect of the impact war and the strain it places on resources can cause.

      This idea of war, particularly the World Wars, fundamentally altering production and environmental impact at the hands of consumption practices is an element of the overall issue of waste that I am greatly interested in exploring in future posts.