Industrialised Tree Plantations

I had an interesting meeting with Steve Auckland, Don Gray and Karen Wall from Associated Newspapers last week. They were interested to hear of Project Freesheets' observations that the street vendors (or merchandisers) were not carrying out their clearing up responsibilities to anything like an acceptable standard. And as AN seem to value the street vendors greatly, the idea of a recycling incentive scheme amongst their street vendors was given some thought.

The efforts being made by AN appear to be genuine (they are hoping to make some announcements in the not too distant future), but I still have this nagging thought - Can a product made from trees with a designed life span of twenty minutes ever be produced in an environmentally responsible manner?

A life cycle assessment of a free newspaper has not been carried out yet, and would cost a lot of money to do, but until tree based paper pulp is taken out of the supply chain, can a free newspaper made from trees ever hope to be labeled environmentally responsibe? This quote is taken from a report entitled "Banks, Pulp and People - A Primer on Upcoming International Pulp Projects" recently published on Pulpmillwatch.org

"Pulp mills and the industrial tree plantations that feed them have become increasingly controversial. In country after country, local people and environmental organisations are protesting against the impacts of plantations. The vast areas of mono-cultures required to feed modern pulp mills have severe impacts on biodiversity, water, land rights and livelihoods. And the mills themselves are among the most polluting of industrial facilities. Communities around the world have seen their rivers, fisheries and drinking water ruined. Protests against pulp mills are ongoing in Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay, to mention just a few of the countries involved."

And according to PulpMillWatch.org, over the next 5 years the pulp industry is planning to increase production capacity by more than 25 million tonnes.........