Three R's and a Microbus

Hanging out with my brother Dagan is always entertaining. He is a boisterous character, and not above expressing his opinion, loudly. I hadn’t seen him since last July, but it just so happened that, while Brandi and I were driving to the Tri-Cities for her sister Alece’s wedding, he was making a pilgrimage north with his daughter Arianna and their buddy Stephen. Seizing the opportunity, I contacted Dag and made arrangements to rendezvous with him when he passed through Kennewick, WA.

My brother is passionate about machines, but he is truly devoted to that simplest of automobiles, the air-cooled Volkswagen. As a show of faith, he was making the 1000 mile trek from Petaluma, California, to Montana in his ’59 Type 2 camper conversion. Dagan had rescued the Transporter from a barn in Oregon years before and had restored it to a usable condition. It ran reliably, but as anyone familiar with classic Volkswagens will be quick to tell you, there is a reason why every VW owner can perform an engine swap on the side of the road.

When I hadn’t heard from him by the appointed time, I gave Dagan a call. Apparently attempting to cross the Central Oregon desert during the hottest part of the day was taking its toll on the camper. For the moment they were huddled in the shade of an overpass, my brother said, waiting for the Volkswagen’s motor to cool down.

If a VW is one thing, it is idiosyncratic. Facing one hundred degree heat, Dagan’s camper was floundering. Ambient air temperature in the Columbia River Basin was so high that the engine could no longer cool itself. Detonation was the result; the risk, a blown motor. Dagan, air-cooled aficionado that he is, knew better than to push the limits of his machine, even if he had brought along another entire engine, just in case.

After a short rest, the VW finally made Kennewick, and I met them in the parking lot of a McDonald’s restaurant just off Highway 395. Dagan prattled on proudly about the Volkswagen for awhile before segueing into one of his familiar rants.

“What I can’t stand are the people who want to crush all the old cars and ship them to Japan to build hybrids.”

Though he might not appear so, my brother Dagan truly is an environmentalist. He may not buy into the latest trends in green consumer culture, but at least he understands there is a hierarchy to the three big R’s of environmental responsibility.

First, reduce consumption wherever possible. Second, reuse everything. Lastly, recycle whatever remains.

An obvious necessity, recycling will never be the answer. Certainly, recycling is a great method for keeping waste out of the landfill, but recycling a perfectly useful old car in order to manufacture a new one? As Dagan notes, this doesn't necessarily a green footprint make.

Considering each vehicle’s carbon footprint in its entirety, it is highly unlikely that crushing a Volkswagen to build a new Toyota Prius would have any less environmental impact than simply continuing to operate the VW itself. What it does do, however, is allow American consumer culture to persist unchecked, with a clean, green, conscious. Move over, V-Dub bus; a new flagship for the alternative lifestyle has arrived. Rather than buying into the hype, Dagan goes green by reusing existing parts to keep his old camper on the road.

As widespread and pervasive as humanity’s impact has become, there is no choice but to recycle, with even greater scope and diligence than ever before. Still, buying newly manufactured goods, even those made from recycled material, has to be relegated to the final option, after alternatives of reduction and reuse have already been explored and exhausted. Clearly, everything that can be must be recycled, and consumers should be rewarded for doing so. But a conservation effort focused on manufacture and consumption, even if it does revolve around recycled materials and green technology, is missing the point.

Reduce. Reuse. Then recycle.

Volkswagen owners are a tribal bunch. After spying Dagan’s camper in the parking lot, several members of the local VW club joined us with their own aging Type 2s. Their discussion was animated, as any conversation among enthusiasts tends to be, centered wholly on Volkswagens and their relationship with this emblematic automobile.

Following the impromptu gathering, I bid farewell to my brother and niece and drove back to Brandi’s parents’ place. The bridal party had assumed control of the house, so I occupied myself by helping her father John set a fence post and finalize some last minute wedding preparations.

The next day Alece and Brandon were married in a beautiful ceremony ministered by Brandi in a neighbor’s yard. A reception dinner followed at the McCoy’s home next door, complete with a diverse assortment of liquid refreshment and the associated mound of discarded cans and bottles.

The McCoy’s are ardent recyclers, and they had made every effort to maximize recycling at the reception. Separate receptacles had been placed beside each trash bin in hopes of capturing as many recyclables as possible. Good use was made of them at first, but as the revelry continued on into the night, more trash and fewer recyclables found its way into the recycling containers.

When I wandered out onto the patio the next morning, I found Brandi up to her elbows in a large black plastic bag. She was happily digging plastic bottles and aluminum cans out of the trash. Shooting her a dubious look, I set to work myself, collecting frosting smeared beer bottles from the garbage and tossing them into a pile.

Knowing we can’t do everything, we must do what we can.