Stop Thinking Recycling is Sustainable | Michael Cyr | TEDxBuffalo 

My mom always taught me " Refuse, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle" and I couldn't agree more

It’s reduce, reuse and recycle (in that order) for a reason! It’s great to be conscious of the waste we produce so we can try to minimize it to the best of our abilities.

"Vote with your dollar." this is such an empowering sentence and I hope people realise just how much of an impact that can make over time.

Recycling begins with personal responsibility. Start with bring your own bags to the market, including produce bags. Stop purchasing items that use plastic unnecessarily- such as bags of fruit. Clean and sort your recyclables responsibly. Stop buying all clothing new, shop for reusable goods.

At this point it's so complicated that it's just easier to go zero waste.

Vote with your dollar, I like that. 👍👍👍

I have spent a lot of time in Japan and their recycling waste system always fascinated me. They have SO MUCH packaging!! Even the tiniest items are excessively packaged- it was the first time I saw bananas wrapped in plastic and there are so many people there. They also send quite a bit of waste to be incinerated, so their bin options usually include ‘combustible’ and ‘non-combustible’ as well as recycling. I always wondered where all that rubbish went since they have such little space available.

We need to conserve our resources and nature

Love this opening our eyes, I’m all in

So relevant and so needed.

Such an important message!

Michael Cyr is doing such a great job!

Recycling alone isn't enough. Do it with friends.

That was a very interesting presentation. The South don't understand recycling that much. We need some seminars in the South to address that more.

Sharing! I have way too many family members who say "but it can be recycled!" Sharon, that ain't doing anything.

Brilliant idea!

Well done Michael, the truth is the truth no matter how uncomfortable it is

Crowd seemed difficult at first, but he made them laugh anyway like a champ.

Great idea!

Thank you for sharing this information!

Reduce, reuse, recycle, refuse, repurpose. :)

The stuff he says at 4:28 about the narrative of recycling is so true. I've never thought about what happens beyond that and I've also never thought about the fact that those materials need to be purchased by someone in order for them to be recycled.

This is what we need to do everywhere.

Smart man!

I'm a little ashamed to admit that I've never thought about how plastic is made. I had no idea so much water was used in the process.

Good project!

I don't think many people can be counted on to even make sure there's no food scraps in their recycling, let alone follow all those procedures so thoroughly.

Thank you for the knowledge Michael!

What a perfect idea, we need more inovators like Michael!

went to the dump the other day or what they call "resource recovery" which i wish were true... it was sad to see how quick we throw away things.

The overall message I'm getting here is that it's going to take a lot more education and the actual DESIRE for people to improve their terrible habits around recycling. Fingers crossed...

Well spoken!

Would you care if your Walmart delivery came in a used Amazon box?

What a great talk. Loved this. So worried for the state of our planet. Ugh!

This is why I try not to buy packaged good anyways. We need to try and reduce how much waste to consume including things that could be recycled

One of the biggest issues preventing the change is that often the decision is made for us, whether we want the straw or not.... just another issue with our consumer society.

liked. shared. great and smart.

Go mike !

In Australia, we recently had the issue with China not taking our recycling hit the news cycle and now we have a huge backlog of waste. Until that came out, I kind of assumed we deconstructed all our recycling here- I did not realise we had so much that we had to palm it off on other countries. It made me completely rethink my purchases in regard to packaging and use of disposable items.

I'm good, do a lot of this already!

Extraordinary lecture, 🇧🇩

*After watching this, please RU-vid... Crowe's message on the climate crisis*

He is a natural, very fun to listen to and I don't feel lectured, yet I feel purposeful. Now which is this that again?

I get this, smart talk smart idea!

Recycling is also very stressful, we always take care to throw the rubbish in the correct dumpster, and when we are at home we always controll if we throw away the rubbish into the appropriate recycle bin. I'm so tired!

I wish I didnt make any waste at all😩 but so far Ive changed all my plastic toiletries to bars and NYC is bannin all olastic bags so I already have reusable ones. Also Im tryin to by produce that are not packed and of course no bottle water or coffe cups.

Im so glad i listened to the whole thing. Well said.

I think the world as we know it has to be torn up by the roots. Pretty much everything we made to better our lives has a negative effect on our planet and on us as a result. It’s self interest to take care of this planet. We want to live here don’t we? Look at anything around you and think about how it came to be. Think of all the people it takes to make it, to invent the process by which it was made, the people that transport it, the trucks and cars they drive. It’s all self serving but also destructive. Pick up a plastic fork and think about the process of plastic injection moulding. Now think about all the tooling those factory’s need. Now think about how that tooling is made. How is the material for the tooling made/acquired? A few years ago I was made aware of the abysmal waste of energy when it comes to meat and how we consume it (among many others). An animal could eat thousands of pounds of feed before its slaughtered and made into something that’ll feed a few people and largely go to waste! I love meat as much as the other person but Jesus tapdancing Christ that’s absurd. Rant over. Now excuse me while I live in a way that contradicts everything I’ve previously said.

It's already so sad to think about all the rubbish dumps in the world but to think what we thought was getting reused actually isn't just... makes my heart sink.

I’m been washing my recycling since I watched this. I didn’t realise it at the time, but this talk really stuck with me. Came back to rewatch

I don't know who out there is still thinking recycling is sustainable but they definitely need to be watching this talk.

individual change won’t decrease plastic pollution, there must be collective change and political will

It's crazy to think about plastic production on that kind of scale, where are all these cups and straws being used??

Sharing.

Such an informative talk, there is so much here I never knew about.

“Waste Addiction”. I needed to sit and let that sink in

Well dude that was a really great speech I think its quite enough for opening our eyes.... 😇😇

Great stuff, Mike Cyr! - Another Mike Cyr

Good talk Mike, really good idea too!

My local council has compost bins for each house as well as the recycling and normal bins. They also provide us with kitchen compost bins and compostable bags. It has greatly reduced our waste

12:05 for the solution and go to! Though changes are, you already know what you need to be doing, you just aren’t doing it

Hahahaha! Especially now with compostable packaging- I am never sure which bin to put things in!

Some of these lifestyle changes seem so big, but small changes like putting a fork in your bag make a difference and lead to big change.

Do i use a metal straw. No i drink out of the cup no straw needed

The business I work in, the waste management is really store to store, there is no consistent policy.

A very smart man with great ideas, ideas we need to save this planet!

They management of our waste needs to be made much more visible so people understand there is a flow on effect. Great message!

Smart smart man, need more like him to save this planet!

the greed we continue to show, so many unwilling to cut down their consumption because it is inconvenient.

I had no idea that those bio plastics needed to be handled with heat! In Australia, we put them in the normal bins under the impression that they will decompose there.

God help us

I have started getting anxiety about the bin thing when I am with one friend. She is so finicky and lectures me whenever I make the wrong decision (or even the right decision)

I always wash and clean my recycling, and people think I am being fanatical. It is the least I can do when I have paid for the ease of the product.

I've actually heard something like this before, that the only thing to really get recycled is metal because it's the easiest thing to filter out. Didn't want to believe it though.

Haha, what bin, how true. Even at home I have 4 bins now and they are always mixed up.

truth

A food co-op opened near me and I was over the moon! I take all my own containers and refill them and it means my household has halved its waste. Yes, it takes a bit more planning and isn’t always as convenient as just ‘ducking to the shops’, but it has made a big difference and an added bonus is that I am much more mindful in what I eat and prepare.

simple, closed plastic manufacture

❤❤

At this point, I've given up on a lot of consumer shopping, simply because of guilt I feel when I buy stuff

I have heard the stats before he uses, and each time I am as shocked as I was the 1st time we heard them. Seems little us being done at all to help.

I very recently discovered that just because something is recyclable doesn't mean ALL of it is, like a plastic bottle is but the bottle cap is not and I definitely have not been following that.

Definitely not enough but helps cement in an ideology of being at least a little bit conscious of where your waste is going. It still shocks me that in many cities and towns around the world recycling isn't even being thought of due to the slight extra cost in establishing a pickup system for it.

Okay is there a way to get this information more widely spread? Because I know people are willing to put the hard work in, I just don't think they know any of thist stuff!

I like this guy.

Shout out to Buffalo, New York!

I can't believe how long it has taken for the narrative to be changed, sometimes I wonder if the lack of education on reusing has purposely been left behind.

Ugh it's such a shame that so many suppliers still DGAF about how they produce and package their goods

Would be nice if 'Kerbside recycling companies' treated their workforce with a bit more respect.

IMPORTANT TOPIC!

Why don't we know this, why don't we have labels on everything so when we buy we understand what will hap[pend when we are done with them?

I'm disappointed you didn't talk & define the resources that are used in plastic/cardboard from drilling, making, & recycling to final clean up. Thanks for sharing the fact that if we are concerned about the health of our planet we should make a bigger effort to understand. We all have brains for thinking. Humans are lazy.

Oh my all the stuff about the disposable cups really bummed me out, and the stuff about how they're made was just as bad.

The way we access information these days you would think we would have more of a handle on how to be on top of this. School's are doing their best but there has to be a way to educate the working masses.

Oh wow I literally felt my heart sink when he was talking about the plastic cups.

So is there any way to actually recycle your pizza boxes?

I can't wrap my head around the fact we've been allowed to get to this point. It makes no sense.

Excellent talk on recycling. I would add one more thing to aid recycling. Burn the waste and recycle the energy, with modern plants like the ones in Norway the emissions/toxins are also mostly taken care of.

🙏🙏🙏🙏

I've seen those cups!