Recycling is just another word for nothing left to lose
Nordic, European and global experts gather at Scandinavia House in New York on Sunday May 8 to give impetus to the ongoing UN negotiations on sustainable development. The growing consumption worldwide is threatening what progress has been made towards a sustainable future, leading business executive warns. Recycling may help, but is in turn threatened by changing consumption patterns.
- Photographer
- Johannes Jansson/norden.org
An expert seminar on Sustainable Consumption in a Green Economy organized by the Nordic Council of Ministers and the European Environment Agency at the UN meetings on Sustainable Development May 2-13 will highlight the consumption and production aspect of the sustainability equation. (See more at www.norden.org/csd19 )
The aim is to throw light on the current knowledge base in the area, propose new steps to be taken and bring the result to the table in the ongoing negotiations in the UN, where a new ten year framework program for consumption and production is to be adopted.
Recycling is a major part of this discussion, as several panelist from the expert group at Sunday’s meeting are pointing out. But in fact recycling is old hat.
- What we call recycling today is simply what everyone did as a simple necessity a 100 years ago, says Dianne Dillon-Ridgley, director of Interface Inc, the world’s leading company in recycled carpets.
She finds that, in this respect, the last century has been an aberration in human history and laments the fact that despite all good intentions, we have not made enough progress since the historic Earth Summit in Rio in 1992.
- We are moving forward, but with all too small leaps as the challenge keeps growing ahead of us, Dillon-Ridgley adds.
In the non-industrialised world the link between consumption patterns and recycling is even more clear, according to another member of the panel at the expert seminar.
- In India, recycling is like second nature, but it is to a large extent poverty driven. Once people get more affluent, the consumption patterns change and so does the urge to recycle, comments Rajan Gandhi, CEO of the Society in Action Group, an Indian NGO.
Apart from the expert seminar, the Nordic Council of Ministers is also organizing a high-level side event at the UN looking ahead towards the Rio+20 meetings next year. Danish Minister for the Environment Karen Ellemann and South African Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa are among the speakers.
For more information, please go to www.norden.org/csd19
Contacts
Michael Funch
Phone
+45 33960332
Email
mifu@norden.org
