Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Synthesizing Again

I ultimately discovered that I agree with the researcher's synthesis. She decided to proceed with caution, which seems about right. I already use my phone on speaker quite often, keeping it sitting on the desk while I talk. And why not? Speaker phone is not Bluetooth, but what can it hurt? 

I like the way the research was presented because it is done in a very conversational, comfortable manner. The researcher also offered her opinion while at the same time including links so we could once more revisit her train of thought. Solid.

It seems like a natural time to revisit my own solutions. I ultimately have decided that recycling is not the perfect answer to a community's problems. Reusing is more cost effective, offers more energy savings, and is more of a community building activity.

At the beginning of this process, I started by merely wondering if our school paper recycling program made a difference so I could then bring that idea of difference to a larger community scale. I found some interesting information about paper recycling, such as how and why. Once I re-calibrated and adjusted the focus of my searching to fit the needs of this assignment, I found ready information about reusing. It was actually nice that I had spent such a large amount of time looking at recycling websites, because I was able to quickly see the contrast between the recycle and the reuse sites. The recycling websites are trying too hard and they seem as though they have something to hide; that fact alone lessens the appeal of recycling.

I wondered at first how a community could go about implementing such a program, and I ultimately came across Freecycle, a system that shows a lot of promise. One downside is that it is web based, but that might also be the upside. It seems like a legitimate site designed to process the needs of such a venture.

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