What do you think would be the 3 most difficult products to make truly circular so that natural resources would be turned into products and then completely recycled to become products again with almost nothing going to landfill.

American’s produce more trash per capita than any other nation in the world at about 1400 lbs per year per person as of 2019, https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/united-states-most-wasteful-country-garbage?gclid=Cj0KCQjwg8n5BRCdARIsALxKb96zgLChHNt5vt7VIkVRj0C8aZF1ZSKxLWbpPVZOb2wUg8ZStXPgEgYaAv0jEALw_wcB
This is the stream of material that needs to be intercepted and repurposed. The proportion of trash in different categories looks like this, reposted from EPA data, https://www.dumpsters.com/blog/us-trash-production#:~:text=Every%20year%2C%20U.S.%20landfills%20are,26.82%20million%20tons%20of%20plastic.

Part 1. What do you think would be the 3 most difficult products to make truly circular so that natural resources would be turned into products and then completely recycled to become products again with almost nothing going to landfill. Sketch out a plan in a paragraph or so describing a plan to make that happen. How long would it take to make that a reality?

Part 2. Energy production is necessary to run our economy but it currently is very linear in that we use fossil fuels that become mostly CO2 and other pollutants in their one use and we are looking with great hope to the green energy movement and electric cars but unless we put in place the circular economy surrounding it we will lose our opportunity to make it sustainable. Do a bit of research and tell me about the current state of recycling green energy technology like solar panels, car and solar batteries, and wind turbines. What do we do with them when they are obsolete? How can we make them circular and sustainable?

Part 3, The video is from Climate Stewards Instructor Training Day 4 July 16, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On_BWsO7u5o
First Outline the main argument Sabrina is making in this presentation about the relationship between economy and social justice issues and how their hypothesis relates to environmental degradation. So how are social justice and environmental problems related?

Some people have recognized this issue in the past and fomented revolutions that mostly just replaced the problem system with another problem system over and over again. The classic book Animal Farm by George Orwell. Revolution in the old-time-y way is never the answer, never has been. So how do you change the paradigm of a culture without a violent uprising?

Finally, write a paragraph or two sketching out one possible way forward that would solve both sets of problems at the same time in a new and positive way by changing the paradigm of our culture. What is the new paradigm?

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