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by booi 1212 days ago
It is reduce, reuse and recycle in that order. If anything seems like they did a great job here.
2 comments

Interesting how that phrase has largely disappeared from the current green message carried by major media. Especially the reduce component.
Reduce would mean you buy less. Reuse would mean you buy less or buy from other people. Only recycle means you buy the same amount as before. Guess which one companies prefer you do?
There's a form of broken window fallacy going on in green policy circles. Particularly the Cash for Clunkers program, and California's recent banning of trucks made before 2010. It is an attempt to drive demand and raw resource extraction to produce new equipment, by destroying existing supply of refined goods and driving up prices. Used cars are scarce now. Opposite of reduce/reuse.
*diesel Big Rigs/Buses. (It's an important distinction, as one would ban the majority of vehicles in the US). Diesel vehicles are particularly bad for the environment, and as we've seen even worse than we thought because of the widespread cheating from manufacturers for environmental testing, and big rigs & busses have previously had massive exceptions carved out for them from environmental regs already for a long time.
Do you think these shoes all end up being recycled in the end?

If not, they're not doing the right thing. It's only good to do it in that order if all steps are followed. It's not "reduce, barely reuse, discard in a landfill or river in east asia".

To the contrary, the likely alternative is virgin material in Indonesia, and it's likely that the benefit from ReUse is

1) Paid for by the secondary market (also adds intrinsic value)

2) Carbon savings are likely measured in a number of days than skipping reuse and going straight to recycling