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The Fourth 'R'
Geof Syphers
You've heard the ecological saying, "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle." But have
you ever wondered if the three 'R's lead to sustainability? Would a city be sustainable
if all its residents earnestly practiced reducing, reusing, and recycling all the
resources they use?
To answer this question, a resource can be tracked as it is used by such an ecological
city. If the resource is never used up or destroyed, then its use can be called sustainable.
Consider the paper used for newsprint. The ecological city starts out by reducing
their consumption of paper, deciding to sell newspapers by the section rather than
selling all sections to all readers regardless of their interest. Next, the newspapers
are passed from reader to reader for reuse. Finally, all of the papers are recycled
at the end of the day.
Some would look at this scenario and say that the paper is being used sustainably.
But there are two problems. First, it is impossible to recover all the paper fibers
during the recycling process. Some fiber will be irrecoverably lost. Second, tree
species may be lost from nature if too many are cut down to produce the first newspapers,
a problem exacerbated by a growing population. So if reducing, reusing, and recycling
isn't enough, what does it take to be sustainable? The fourth 'R' can be found by
looking at how material behaves differently in nature and in society.
An increasing amount of matter is being moved from nature where it is part of endless
growth and decay cycles to the human world where it becomes frozen in form. Think
of the nutrients in the food we eat. They are taken from topsoil by growing plants;
the plants are moved from farms to cities where they are eaten and excreted; the
sewage is treated and dumped-either on land or at sea. Either way the dumping area
contains abnormally high concentrations of both nutrients and toxins. The existence
of toxins and even the high concentration of nutrients makes it unlikely that normal
biological processes which reabsorb the nutrients will occur. The nutrients from
the topsoil are effectively removed from the cycles of life.
The landfill is a simpler example of how matter can become frozen in form. Because
of the lack of oxygen and moisture, organic matter such as paper, wood, food scraps,
and fabric do not decompose. Without that critical step, matter cannot be recycled
into new life.
Human societies require a constant influx of materials from the natural world-most
notably oxygen, clean water, fossil fuels, plants and animals. With the exception
of fossil fuels, the natural world has the capacity to restore matter consumed by
humans. The energy nature uses to restore matter comes solely from absorbing the
Sun's light and heat. Driven by this light and heat are the processes of photosynthesis
and transpiration, the primary restorative forces of nature. In the natural world,
sunlight provides the energy for plants to grow-both directly, with photosynthesis,
and indirectly, by causing water to evaporate, providing rain. In cities, sunlight
is not restorative. When sunlight and the wind and rain it produces falls on our
buildings it slowly deteriorates them. This fact alone means that we depend on nature
for all restoration of oxygen, clean water, and organic matter. So while organizations
discuss sustainable cities, it is important to remember our dependence on nature
for the most important step: restoration.
-- Geof Syphers is an SSF Board Member and an energy engineer in
San Francisco
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