Not incredible enough

There's an old story about a family that cooks up a huge feast with a full-on roast every year. The tradition and meal preparation gets passed down from generation to generation, with the chef always making sure to cut the ends off either side of the leg before placing it in the roasting tray.

On one occasion, the daughter asks her mother why they always cut the sides off, and gets a dumbfounded stare: 'I actually don't know; we've always done it that way.' The line of questioning continues, until eventually the great-grandmother reveals that when she first made the roast decades ago, her pan was too small for the whole lamb to fit, so she cut it to size.

The practice of unnecessary waste is not a measure of prosperity; it's a sign of short-sightedness.

Lezette Engelbrecht, online features editor, ITWeb

And so it goes. A lot of behaviour gets carried over because it's “always been done that way”. Or because it's what everyone else does. Even if it makes no logical sense, even if the pan has gotten bigger, and we're wasting without realising it.

But there's nothing like a bit of financial incentive to get people to re-evaluate old habits. Take Incredible Connection's annual recycling take-back scheme, which ran during February. The initiative saw 106 tonnes of cast-off computer goods collected during the month, with 16 000 discounted items sold in return.

While I applaud the initiative, it makes you wonder why awareness around recycling and the responsible disposal of goods is still considered a “special”, once-a-year thing. Shouldn't these kinds of incentives be the norm, rather than the exception? It's clear people are willing to make the effort when there are rewards involved, so why not implement a discount for those who return goods year round?

Okay, so much of the hardware brought back was unusable, but there are many components - plastics, precious metals, glass - which can be reused. While consumers can drop off goods at the retailer throughout the year, if the trade-in promotion encourages people to make the extra effort, then adopting it as standard practice means the effort wouldn't be “extra” anymore.

According to Incredible Connection, the drive has fostered partnerships with suppliers to run joint recycling programmes, so there are obviously ways for IT retailers to do this without hurting the bottom line; not to mention the corporate image boost that comes along with it.

Many stores in SA have some kind of rewards or loyalty programme - a similar service could see consumers earning points based on the amount they recycle, and redeeming those points for purchases.

These kinds of initiatives are already being run in the US, UK, Germany and New Zealand.

A US-based waste collector called Recyclebank, for example, allocates points to various types of materials, and these reward points can be used at various local and national partners.

Shoppers save on future purchases, and materials get returned to the system, saving companies the time and resources needed to create materials from scratch. This prompts manufacturers to make sure their products are recyclable, and creates an overall mindset of reusing goods, which has somehow gotten a bit of a bad rap in recent years.

While the recession has helped, in many cases saving is still viewed with a twinge of pity or disdain. I've heard people say they're embarrassed to take cloth bags to the store, or even ask for a doggie bag at a restaurant. You're also likely to get at least a few funny looks if you use grocery vouchers, visit Cash Crusaders on a frequent basis, or wrap new gifts in previously used paper.

But it used to be the perfectly acceptable, encouraged even, to reuse stuff. Anyone remember returning Coke bottles to the corner store for a deposit, or rinsing out your milk bottles and placing them outside for collection? As kids we used to spend hours collecting soft drink cans for school programmes, and some people make their living that way.

For many years, wasting was taboo - an insult to the hardship previous generations had endured, or simply unaffordable. But after a few decades of economic excess, which has only recently faded, it's become the norm to waste... to leave things half-eaten or half-used, and dismiss any kind of avoidable scrimping.

But the practice of unnecessary waste is not a measure of prosperity; it's a sign of short-sightedness. In a world where fresh water, clean air, and natural forests are fast being diminished, adopting an apathetic attitude to waste is gambling with the future.

There's a great need to make saving and reusing a lifestyle again. People don't like being told to use less, and while that's necessary, if may be easier to start with returning things that can be reused, with benefits. Carrots work better than sticks, after all.

We have to wake up to the reality of how our buying behaviour affects the broader environment, and make changes daily habits, rather than exceptions for special occasions. In years from now, if our children ask why we always take things back, reuse goods and waste mindfully, I hope we'll be able to look at them and say: “It wasn't always that way”.