Ranking The 3 Rs
by greenz.jp, Tokyo, Japan 
on 10.31.08
I liked this cartoon by High Moon over at Japan for Sustainability. I never thought about it quite this way before. Ranking the 3 Rs in order of importance, they give Reduce the first place, followed by Reuse and a third place for Recycle. Or should they all rank the same?
JFS also has a cute website for kids, called Create Your Future. Do have a look!
Some of the topics over at JFS kid's website are a challenge even for adults to make sense of. The issues raised include How to Have a Car without Owning It, or How We Learn from Nature.
The Story of a Mysterious Land is set in the future, with ideas about how it might feel to suddenly find yourself in a future that is more eco-friendly and "people friendly."
The web site was produced by the Service Grant team members, a program that provides non-profit organizations with pro bono services by business professionals. The original model for this program was created by Taproot Foundation in San Francisco and was adapted by the Tokyo-based Earthday Money Association.
Brought to you by Martin Frid at greenz.jp
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Recycle: Something took energy to make, and it will take more energy to re-make (recycle) it into something new.
Re-use: Something took energy to make, and you keep it in that state for as long as possible.
Reduce: Nothing was made, and you get by with things without creating the need for superfluous items.
Seems, as much as I hate the phrase, to be common sense!
There is (and definitely should be) a hierarchy. Sirerdrick explained why but I want to emphasize - reduce FIRST, then reuse then recycle. That's why I kind of hate those shirts/buttons/stickers touting the "green" habit of recycling because they're missing a very important point. REDUCE REDUCE REDUCE.
Umm, yeah. You didn't know that? They're in that order for a reason. ;)
I guess I shouldn't be surprised; I just explained this to one of my eco-conscious friends on the phone. The whole "Three Rs" thing was just a public relations campaign about the waste hierarchy. They left out "energy recovery" (e.g. incineration) and combined "prevention" and "minimisation." Of course disposal is the least favorable option.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_hierarchy
I sometimes say it as "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rubbish."
To me this is like someone saying "Hey, did you know that the recycling symbol ALSO tells which kind of plastic!!" The 3 R's always indicated preference.
The three R's are a good thing, but I prefer Upcycling.
Sirerdrick and Laura are right. The three Rs come in the order of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle for a reason. Those old hippies knew what they were doing when they coined the phrase.
I never heard of upcycling before so I googled it up. Wikipedia defines it as "a component of sustainability in which waste materials are used to provide new products". So basically then, it is recycling of waste or by-products. The waste or by-product was produced using energy, just like the target product, and it requires more energy to be transformed into something else, just like a finished product that is eventually recycled.
Reduce >> Reuse >> Repair >> Recycle *
* Terms and conditions apply: Subject to Life Cycle Assessment, specific conditions and variations apply for particular examples. To be effective all recycling should be upcycling, not the disappointingly more common downcycling.
Would "Repair" be categorized under Reuse?