“Before, you could be green by being greedy,” said Jim Wilcox, a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. “Now you’ve really got to rely more on your notions of civic participation.”
Quoted from this article the huge decline in demand for recycled materials. The other insightful piece:
Businesses and institutions face their own challenges and decisions. Harvard, for instance, sends mixed recyclables – including soda bottles and student newspapers – to a nearby recycling center that used to pay $10 a ton. In November, Harvard received two letters from the recycler, the first saying it would begin charging $10 a ton and the second saying the price had risen to $20.
Another good piece.
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5370
It seems to me that when the price of something has fallen to the point at which it becomes disposable after a single use (e.g. a paper cup), that is a sign of resource efficiency. It’s price reflects the cost of all inputs (land (trees), labor, and capital (machinery)), and someone has figured a way to combine those inputs so efficiently that we can toss it in the can without a second thought. Such innovations suggest that those resources are becoming abundant relative to our needs, no?
Try that one out on one of your “green” friends. Enjoy the blank stare…