INTRODUCTION:
THE CYCLE-LOGICAL LOGIC OF RECYCLING
The term 'cycle-logical' creates a linguistic link between recycling and psychology. Cycle-logic means utilizing cyclic logic that expands thinking beyond current uses and end-point goals. It envisions pre-production and post-use scenarios existing as stations along an ongoing itinerary of material use. Cycle-logic integrates recycling into decisions regarding which materials are mined, how they are fabricated, what uses they serve, when they are discarded, and how they are reused. It simultaneously seeks methods of reuse that assure the ability of eco systems to cope with stress, withstand adversity, recover from disturbance, create vitality, and invent their own recycling strategies. In this manner, cycling the earth's limited materials becomes a function of the mind's unlimited creativity.
'Once-upon-a-time' introduces many beloved tales that offer the allure and romance of some bygone era. In a similar manner, the phrase 'in-the-beginning' catapults storytelling all the way back to the origin of time. Because this book employs cycle-logic, neither phrase will be used again in this book. Its mission is to demonstrate that material existence on earth is both never-beginning and never-ending. Recycling brings eternity down to earth because it avoids the presumption that goods that no longer have significance, or use, or relevance at the present moment are 'departed' when they are deposited in landfills. It attempts to reform behaviors of non-recycling consumers who sentence their cast-offs to a stifling purgatory where materials are prevented from contributing to the vitality of their communities.
Recyclers resist imposing life-sentences. They work toward the reform of such material captives so that they can serve new work lives. Judicious reuse of rejected and defunct materials guides their behaviors. Cycle-logical Art was written to help artists assure that the earth's resources live 'happily-ever-after'.