Greenwash explored

Here's a really excellent article by Fred Pearce of the Guardian

He explores the ludicrously shallow 'green' claims of some corporate giants and cites the record number of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority as evidence of many corporations' increasingly cynical attitude towards improving carbon footprints. Mr Pearce goes on to tell us that the Guardian will have a regular column looking at these very issues called Greenwash.

"Can we shop our way to sustainability? Are some products so green it is better to buy two of them rather than one? Or are our own consumer lifestyles, suffused in greenwash, the problem? Is there really no alternative to putting away our credit cards, pulling on our thickest jumper and heading for the hills?"

Timely, succinct and relevant to y'all!

Paperless paper

It's a technology that's been around for a few years, but until now it hasn't been proven to be a practical alternative to the newspaper. How useful a product this will prove to be in years to come remains to be seen; see here for one of the newer electronic reader products.

However, in this article written by Steven Rosenberg, the author explores the technolgy and concludes that "sitting on a commuter train, I suddenly realise there's another good thing you can do with an ordinary newspaper that you couldn't do with a flashy electronic one. Leave it behind for someone else to read."

There you have it. Confirmation that even a well informed journalist can still act under the misguided impression that he is helping a fellow passenger by abandoning his own reading material. But why? You wouldn't leave your book behind would you? You probably wouldn't leave a magazine behind? Any 'disposable' product that is left behind on the public transport network costs us both environmentally (by landfilling of precious resources) and fiscally (through our local council taxes).

The article goes on to observe that if you lose your newspaper "it's no problem - 50 cents. But if you lose an electronic newspaper it will be expensive for you." And even more so on the environment.

Will people be able to adjust their own reading habits in favour of technologies that require a certain amount of forethought, or will impulsive demand for consumption mean that products like disposable newspapers will be around for a lot longer than some may think?

Insiders view on the paper industry

Written by Mr RC Viner of the Premier Paper Group this article gives a very frank and honest account of where one paper industry executive thinks the industry as a whole needs to go in order to continue to improve the industries' sustainability.

Here are some snippets -

"The United Kingdom should recycle more paper and use more of its waste paper in the domestic production of paper and board - instead of exporting over five million tonnes of waste paper each year."

"Using 70gsm paper instead of 80gsm can use 23% less wood fibre, 20% less water, 28% less energy and produces 13% less waste. And yet, today’s 70gsm papers will perform just as efficiently in the most demanding xerographic applications as an 80gsm equivalent."

"In practice, the vast bulk of paper produced today comes from trees - they are a convenient, flexible and relatively cheap source of pulp. But there are alternatives. One manufacturer already produces a range of coated papers suitable for high quality printing applications that contains a high proportion of a bagasse - a by-product from the refining of sugar."