Reduce - Reuse - Recycle
Contrary to popular belief, recycling is not the first choice in the circular economy. Rather, recycling should only be used when further use of products is no longer possible. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that recycling requires a relatively large amount of energy and that energy consumption increases the more of the recycled material can actually be used again. On the other hand, there is hardly any material or product that is perfectly suitable for recycling. There is therefore always a certain loss in quality and/or quantity. Of course, there are major differences between different products and materials. For example, electronic devices, which consist of countless, firmly connected parts, are more difficult to recycle than a PET bottle and aluminum - to put it simply - is more suitable for recycling than steel.
Of course, you can discuss this almost endlessly. But the most important thing here is to realize the limits of recycling. It is relatively easy to produce material for fleece jackets from carefully separated PET bottles, but very time-consuming to produce recyclate from a wide variety of packaging materials, from which technical parts with high requirements can be produced. In order to retain the value or, to put it another way, the energy and raw materials used, recycling must result in recyclates and products that are as equivalent as possible, which can then also be reused. Otherwise, this is known as "downcycling": the quality and thus the value steadily decrease.
Instead of sending products for recycling, it is much better to reduce the total quantity of products or the material required for production. This can be achieved by using materials that are as durable as possible or through appropriate design, but also through more conscious consumption or the "sharing economy", which is also becoming increasingly popular. All of this can make a decisive contribution to significantly reducing resource consumption. Somehow logical, after all, fewer cars, sweaters or skis need to be produced if they last longer or can be used by several people!
The use of natural, renewable raw materials is also becoming increasingly important. If, for example, wood is used instead of steel or bamboo instead of plastic, no irreplaceable resources are consumed. What's more, as long as the renewable raw materials are actually renewable, no embedded emissions are released.
And what about winter sports?
But if our skis break or our jacket simply can't protect us from the elements, the question arises as to what should happen to it. At least if you don't have a lot of space in your ski cellar and simply store discarded equipment permanently... Of course, it's nice if you can recycle the equipment or use it for as long as possible. Compared to other areas of our lives, winter sports equipment generally plays a relatively minor role. Nevertheless, it's great if you can contribute to reducing the consumption of resources and the emission of climate-damaging greenhouse gases through your consumption decisions.
