Is Recycling more of a cultural issue?

[Katrina O'Brien]

Is recycling cultural, political, or economical? I have always thought about the political and economical side, but never really the cultural. I have lived in Germany, and there, recycling is a natural as breathing. If you don't do it your neighbours will tell you off and it is highly looked down upon in society. However a recent talk on Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough rose a point. The eastern world have always recycled. China for example. Some farmers have farmed the same piece of land for thousands of years. How? How can you do this if you don't have a basic understanding of nutrients? Basically the farmers feed the land with nutrients, this can be done in a number of ways, but a common one is their sewage. In some of the major cities in china there is sometimes a shortage of water, so people are very careful and don't waste anything. Waste does not exist in nature, it is something we have created, my like time, but more deadly. Time and waste do not exist but cycles exist, everything is reused over and over again without ever degrading. The northern part of the world is very wasteful, why is this? Why do we bury valuable nutrients or burn them so no one can ever reuses them again? Is it because we believe once your dead - your dead?? That we believe in resurrection while the east believe in reincarnation?