A New Tongue Twister

by Taka

In today’s environmental world, frameworks are racing ahead of real action.

It all started simply enough in the 1970s with the 3Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Clean, elegant, and easy to remember. Environmentalists proudly say it has “penetrated society.” In reality, only recycling has gained real traction, mostly because it makes money, sometimes raising suspicions of greenwashing. Meanwhile, a surprising number of people still think the 3Rs are a new K-pop group or something.

And even though we haven’t exactly nailed those three yet, someone thought, “You know what this needs? More Rs.

So along came Rethink and Rot.

Rethink makes sense, at least on paper. It asks you to pause before buying something and consider whether you really need it. Rot, on the other hand, did not quite win the popularity contest, probably because of a small identity crisis. Not all the Rs began with “re,” which apparently mattered more than expected. Like a misshapen vegetable, it sat there, waiting and still not chosen. Rot was quietly replaced, and Repurpose took its place.

At this point, things became more ambitious.The 5Rs turned into the 7Rs: Rethink, Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Repurpose, and Recycle.

Still, it did not stop there. Someone, somewhere, decided two more would help. Refurbish and Remanufacture joined in, and just like that, we had the 9Rs: Rethink, Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Repurpose, Refurbish, Remanufacture, and Recycle. It now sounds less like an environmental framework and more like a tongue twister.

Despite this growing collection of Rs, many environmental problems remain unsolved.

Nature needs just one: Reset.