The present-day hierarchy has had a profound effect on waste management strategies, structure, politics, and certified authority–a self-perpetuating aristocracy claiming a sort of moral high ground that, until recently, has held at bay those who would challenge that authority. It would be misleading to suggest that no good has resulted from the hierarchy and its adherents, but it would be equally wrong to ignore the damage its institutionalization has wrought.
What damage, you ask? Outsourcing in pursuit of quick profits is one example, but the real damage of the hierarchy lies not in its inability to align waste management with the larger issues of social responsibility and resource sustainability but, rather, the institutionalization process itself.
This column has devoted a lot of time and energy to the support of new technologies and our need to look for ways to employ them in our daily activities. But, more often than not, changes to the way we do business have run afoul of the most pragmatic of issues: "We can’t afford it." Just once I’d like to see the dialog opened with the question, "Can we afford not to explore and make use of new approaches even when the dollars-and-cents part of the equation doesn’t seem to work out?"
I don't know what the future has in store for us, but I think we have to recognize that the world we've known is dead and gone. Will consumerism recover in our lifetimes? If it doesn't, what does this say for waste management? Suppose it recovers. What form will it take? Now is the time for radical thinking, something institutions are spring-loaded to oppose.