Waste Is Good Material at the Wrong Place - Perspectives of a Recycling Economy

Abstract

When I lived in Brasilia, I possessed a beautiful, precious collection of orchids on my porch. I am no collector of orchids, but I knew a florist’s shop in the city center that received blossoming plants from orchid cultivators of Sao Paolo, which were then sold at the fourfold price. Plants beginning to fade and hence not meeting an immediate buyer were sent to the landfill, among them very precious specimens, up to 15 years old, which clearly had not been grown in a conservatory but had been stolen from nature. I cannot stand such things; I fetched them. They rewarded me in the coming year with the renewed magnificent beauty of their flowers. For the florist, these wonderful flowers were a means to get money, nothing else. We find this mentality all across our modern industrial societies. It is even dominating a major part of waste management.