just a quick post to let you know that you can read Dumped's technical advisor Steve Jones' latest exclusive blog entry on Being Green - From Denial & Despair To Action at:
here's a quote from yesterday papers from Tony Juniper - said in response the the Tories latest green policy statements.. I couldn't agree more with what it says...
"The green agenda is often wrongly interpreted as being mainly negative, about having less and paying more. However, lower congestion, reduced pollution, stronger communities, warmer homes, lower bills, healthier food and more durable products could all be part of a low carbon and more resource-efficient future. We could put in place the investment and markets to create new enterprise based on cutting-edge environmental technologies. Equipping the world with the means to protect resources and ecosystems while cutting pollution is perhaps the biggest business opportunity in history, and we should be making moves to be a big part of it. Sadly, however, no mainstream politician has yet seized this obvious territory."
so why didn't the program focus a bit on what the goverment needs to do to assist things
They need to encourage an energy efficient economy, yes but efficiency alone won't get us there.
An element of increased cost and lower consumption is essential, after all, like all prior generations, we have lived off the future by raping the planets resources for countless years.
Only our elected representatives can enforce this. For every Selina, there are innumerable people looking at their gas guzzling neighbours thinking, well if they're not going to change, why should I.
I wish the government would actually do something positive for a change. i've just spent the last week speaking to DEFRA and WRAP. It's very upsetting to know that not a single piece of plastic that isnt grade 1 or 2, is being recycled. I was given the standard "byline" that "You CAN recycle those items, in borough's where facilities exist"....Hmmmmmmm. Not being one to believe carefully worded statements for how they appear to look on the surface, i decided to go a little deeper.....well a lot deeper in fact. So i spoke to every single plastics reprocesser in this wonderful land of of ours. i also spoke to 95% of the waste management companies, responsible for collecting and sorting our waste before its then shipped to the reprocessers. What do you think i found out?
NOT A SINGLE COLLECTER, OR REPROCESSER ANYWHERE IN GREAT BRITAIN, SORTS OR REPROCESSES PLASTICS OTHER THAN 1 AND 2!!!!!!!!
So i would like to ask....anyone,everyone, everywhere..... hows does that make you feel when your told to buy something thats in "supposedly" recyclable packaging.
Cheated?
Lied to?
why can DEFRA and WRAP get away with saying "the packaging is recyclable "where facilities exist"....the FACT is that they dont......anywhere! if at least one council, somewhere, recycled those grades of plastics, then i could understand. but they dont.
having spoken to the reprocesser's they have told me that at the moment...NO TECHNOLOGY EXISTS that can sort the 12 or so different types of recyclable plastics into their various groups. which means as much as someone might want to recycle them, its not possible to.
if anyone has any suggestions as to how they would like to see this problem tackled please do get in touch. more importantly, how do you feel about the "recyclable" packaging thats in your fridge?
For most people, the packaging is selected on the consumer's behalf by the major supermarket chains; and most people are lucky if they have a choice between two supermarkets. So it's Tesco et al who must bear the brunt of the responsibility here.
The only thing that might get them to take some sort of notice of the problem is if enough people actually get together and take serious action, leaving EVERY SINGLE PIECE of non-recyclable packaging at the tills. Obviously this means you will have to take a number of reusable plastic containers with you when you go shopping; then open everything straight after it has been scanned, transfer it to your own container and leave the empty store-provided packaging on the conveyor belt. (Maybe they will even have to close the checkout lane while it's being cleaned up!) Or, you could return the empty packaging -- with supermarket logo prominent -- to the Customer Services desk.
When it becomes the supermarkets' problem, they might actually start doing something about it.
A good plan, if i might make a few adjustments to it.
no one is going to repackage their food as they buy it.
however, people are habitual shoppers, meaning they go back to the same place and buy the same things.
lets keep our packaging, and when we go back, dump it at the service desk.
i collected all the packaging i couldnt recycle for a whole week.....OMG there was tonnes of it.....well not tonnes, but 3 whole carrier bags full of it!
i'm definately going to take it back and dump it on the supermarkets service desk counter.
but its not just them, its many manufactrers.
i just don't believe they know 100% whats going on with the recylable plastcis market.
Originally posted by Lucibee: Sorry to be a cynic, but if we did that, wouldn't they just send it to landfill? It would only really work if EVERYONE took back their packaging.
Maybe at first; remember, though, that businesses (as do individuals on the Continent, I believe?) have to pay by the kilo for what they send to landfill, but they earn on what they recycle. There's some critical point where the cost of disposing of all this excessive packaging will exceed the cost of forcing their suppliers to switch to recyclable packaging.
Basically, non-recyclable packaging is a scam which depends entirely on the fact that individuals are not (currently) under any obligation to minimise landfill. So instead of dumping stuff in landfill, manufacturers get consumers to do it for them. We shouldn't fall for it.
A few years ago now, I remember you could buy packs of AA alkaline batteries, branded with the name of a famous photographic film company and labelled "not for resale", in pound stores. These had evidently been removed from single-use cameras, and those which were found on test still to contain some juice (they put a new battery in every camera; 24 flashes doesn't take a lot out anyway, and you don't need a flash at all in bright sunlight) were being sold on by the processing company's waste disposal contractor ..... I guess they must have managed to make enough out of flogging the barely-spent batteries to cover the cost of disposing of the really-spent ones. I've not seen the packs on sale lately. Perhaps the company figured that if some of the batteries were indeed reusable, they might as well be the ones doing the reusing?
Originally posted by Jason, Stig of the Dump: A good plan, if i might make a few adjustments to it.
no one is going to repackage their food as they buy it.
however, people are habitual shoppers, meaning they go back to the same place and buy the same things.
lets keep our packaging, and when we go back, dump it at the service desk.
i collected all the packaging i couldnt recycle for a whole week.....OMG there was tonnes of it.....well not tonnes, but 3 whole carrier bags full of it!
i'm definately going to take it back and dump it on the supermarkets service desk counter.
but its not just them, its many manufactrers.
i just don't believe they know 100% whats going on with the recylable plastcis market.
as aaron would say..... "its Horrideous"
Hey did you do it in the end? What happened (besides blank awkward looks at the checkout?).
Great idea though. If everbody returned to the supermarkets with all the unneccesary packaging they've accumulated in a week, and dumped it outside the store managers office, the message might begin to sink in.
