Ellsworth American quotes Isenhour in article on recycling
The Ellsworth American quoted Cynthia Isenhour, an assistant professor of anthropology and climate change at the University of Maine, in an article about the opening of Fiberight waste processing facility in Hampden, which will include recycling. Fiberight will have a sorting process that will be able to recover recyclables that have been thrown in the trash by accident, but the company’s officials urge consumers to still clean recyclables before tossing them, according to the article. Reducing waste should still come as a first step before recycling. “If we’re looking at the status quo (producing a lot of single-use packaging — bottles, cans, films, glass — and throwing most of it in a landfill or incinerator), then yes, life cycle analyses suggest that we should be recycling,” said Isenhour. But, “The most important thing we can do for the climate is focus on reduction and reuse. While we’re recycling a lot, the material and energetic gains are cannibalized by growth in production and consumption of new materials,” she added.