Responsibility Assumption and Victim Blaming.

Since the year 2000, recycling rates in the UK have increased nearly 400%. Who should we praise for this great achievement? And who should we blame for the 60% of trash which is not yet recycled?

Have you heard of Responsibility Assumption, or the Doctrine of Personal Responsibility? This could be considered one of the defining characteristics of modern, western civilization.

In this philosophy, people are totally responsible for their own actions, and their circumstances, even to the point where negative thinking can result in bad outcomes. So women are blamed for being the victims of assault, because they could have made better choices. Poor people are blamed for being poor, because they are obviously "too lazy" to become rich.

The colossal amounts of plastic trash in the oceans comes from us, our household waste. But we have limited control over how much waste we generate. When you go to the store to buy groceries, you find that all of the options include too much packaging. There's no choice to be made. You can remove the packaging in store, or complain to the staff, but the system of packaging is resistant to interference by consumers. It is handled off site, probably even in another country, and often subject to special regulation.

You could consume less, but the nature of our economic system means that reduced consumption leads to reduced revenues, which lead to reduced economic growth, unemployment and poverty. Every year we are read a report on our progress. We are congratulated for consuming more, we are castigated for failing to hit our shopping targets, and blamed for sluggish economic performance. *We* are to blame for poverty. If only we would shop more!

When I was younger, there was no collection of recycling waste from households. If you wanted to recycle, you had to drive out of town to the dump to do it. If you didn't have a car, you couldn't do it at all. Simply including a collection service from @2003 has led to the 400% increase shown in the graph at the top of this page.

That is not the result of individual choice, but institutional change.

It would be entirely possible to create a zero waste society; a 100% recycling culture. But it would require intervention in the way our society is structured, in a way that is said to conflict with the individual responsibility doctrine. Using taxes and regulation to force producers to limit their packaging and be responsible for the unnecessary waste they create would infringe upon their "liberty" and affect their ability to be responsible for their own actions.

So instead, the blame is put on consumers who are not taking enough responsibility for their own "terrible actions". 

This is our culture, and we are embedded in it, so thinking differently is almost impossible. It's a doctrine which is pounded in to us again and again through the news media. It is reinforced with every TV show and movie; "You are the chosen one! You can save the world, with your special individual choice!" 

Just today I bought a coffee in a coffee shop and it arrived in a paper cup with a plastic lid and straw. I didn't ask for that, it's the default setting of our society. There wasn't a recycling bin in the store, so I had to bring the cup home and put it in our bin.

It doesn't have to be this way. It should be harder for us to waste than not to. It should be harder to do bad actions, than to do good. We shouldn't have to depend on everyone living like saints, because it should be easier to be a saint than a sinner.

It doesn't have to be implemented as a "big brother" system, with the state looking over your shoulder and making sure you follow the rules. Simply tweaking a few variables in the way that products are produced and sold would have a massive effect. Taxing producers is seen as a bad idea, because they would pass the burden on to consumers. But why not let the consumers claim the tax back later when they recycle? Such a system can be revenue neutral, with consumers being paid back the tax when the "work" or recycling is finished. It could also reduce the marginal cost of recycled materials, making them a more cost effective alternative to fresh, raw materials.

Providing home collection of recycling is seen as costly and difficult to manage, but only because the final accounting is left until the waste is ready to be collected. The producer didn't pay it. The retailer didn't pay it. The consumer didn't pay it... until they are left holding the finished product. We moan and groan at the high price of waste collection and recycling, not realizing that our purchases are subsidized all down the line by not including the cost of disposal. If we don't pay the cost at that point, it is pushed further down the line, to be paid in full when our oceans are rendered dead and unable to support life.