ABSTRACT
A major input into the Brundtland Report was a growing sense that our current economic systems are ecologically unsustainable. More controversial is the question of whether these systems are socially unsustainable. This Chapter explores whether and how sustainable development can be, first, attainable within a reasonable period and, second, durable once it has been attained (Davis 1991), using local recycling as a case study and model. The conclusion reached is that the contemporary world economic system, based on the ‘treadmill of production’ (Schnaiberg 1980; Schnaiberg and Gould 1994) is incompatible with the logic of sustainable development as currently understood, since inherently it has institutionalized economic growth as the central national and transitional goal.
