Blog Post from the Class “The Psychology of Sustainable Behavior”

By: Olivia Forsheé

        Now that our zero-waste project is over, I’m finding that a lot of what I felt as “stress” and “guilt” during the 10-days was due to the induced hypocrisy paradigm. The induced hypocrisy paradigm is the dissonance you feel when you say you will do something or live a certain way and you don’t follow through (Scott, Amel, Koger, and Manning. 2021). This concept stems from the human evolutionary need to stay with your group. When an individual had ideas or acted in ways that didn’t mesh with the communities beliefs, they were often cast out and this most surely was a death sentence. So, fast forward, and thankfully the consequences are not as severe, but still, every time I threw something in my jar I felt guilt for letting my class and myself down for going directly against our social norms and the commitment I had made to produce zero-waste. For the longest time I have preached that I care about the environment, and yet I had no idea my seemingly simple decision to throw items in a trashcan, had been so detrimental to the environment, and to low-income, and BIPOC communities that often surround waste management facilities. Now that I've had this experience, and I’ve realized how important living zero-waste is for the environment and disadvantaged people, I’ve continued my quest to live a zero-waste lifestyle.

        Since making the switch, I’m finding myself feeling much freer and hopeful that others will also realize the importance zero-waste has for achieving a sustainable planet. Sadly, this shift in my personal thinking alone is not enough to achieve a zero-waste lifestyle because of our society’s widely accepted dominant social paradigm (also referred to as DSP). The DSP that prevails in Western societies is that progress is achieved by growth, and specifically, the best way to grow is through industrialization (Scott, Amel, Koger, and Manning. 2021). On top of the food products that come out of this industrialized system, pun intended, is a ton of plastic. The problem for me is that some of the manufactured/processed foods I love are packaged in this plastic, and it is one of the most difficult materials to effectively recycle. Some of the foods I’m referring to are: dairy products (such as milk, cheese, greek yogurt, and sour cream), fruits and veggies that are wrapped in unnecessary plastic or plastic bags (such as bunches of bananas that have plastic around the ends to keep them fresher longer or the salad mix I get that comes in a plastic bag or plastic carton), and loaves of bread (why can’t they switch to paper bags?! urgh). Although I’ve slowly seen communities implementing more extensive recycling programs, some places still struggle to accept certain types of plastics. For example, where I live in St Paul, MN, they are still unable to recycle black plastics because most infrared sensors at recycling facilities can’t sort them properly by type; and there are only three types of plastics accepted at my curbside pickup ♳,♴, and ♷. Thankfully, I’ve now noticed I only used to buy one product that had black plastic, and that was my Trader Joe’s pizza sauce that has a clear plastic, recyclable container, but a black plastic lid.

        Another element in my struggle to deviate from the DSP has to do with convenience. I am a hard-working college student with a lot of credit hours, on top of having (technically) three part-time jobs. Making the concerted effort needed to shop in ways that don’t produce waste, takes time. For example, I now look at every product to see how to dispose of it after, and if I can’t dispose of it by recycling, compost, or store drop-off (which is still only available for certain plastics and in certain places), then I don’t buy it. And as we’ve discussed, convenience is one of the most important factors in getting people to make a change in their lifestyle. Even if a person knows that a certain change is important and they have the means to do it, if the change takes a lot of time and effort, most people will simply stick with what’s most convenient. And our most convenient option for disposal within our current DSP is the trash can. So I’m breaking away from easy! Taking the easy route is not going to help increase equity or save the planet from the damage of industrialization!

        By shopping differently, I am putting in the effort to make Upstream Solutions to Downstream Problems. What I mean by this is, by shopping in ways to not produce waste in the first place, I’m ensuring that the packaging that would have needed to have been thrown away, will never end up in the landfill. Additionally, as I begin to pester my sphere of influence (friends and family) on the importance of zero-waste I hope to get more people living zero-waste, or at least more waste-conscious. This would slowly decrease demand for unsustainable manufacturers’ products, forcing them to stop the production of certain plastics in order to gain back their customer base, who now require products to be zero waste.

        In conclusion, in order for me to avoid my own sense of induced hypocrisy paradigm and branch out from our extremely messed up DSP (in my opinion), I’m putting in the time and effort to make Upstream Solutions with my purchasing habits (or lack thereof). By making the shift to zero waste I hope to incite the change I want to see in our world and increase environmental equity for all people, especially those who are disadvantaged by our current system.