3 posts tagged “recycling”

(I just read Magjunkie's post on environmental consciousness and this is my super-belated response)

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We try very hard to be green, but it can get pretty...trying, if you would pardon the pun. For one, I have a low tolerance for clutter, so keeping recyclable items in the house has to be systematic and neat or I'd be sorely tempted to throw them all out. Also, being green comes with an extra workload. Yes, extra workload:

- washing and drying used plastic tubs/glass jars instead of throwing them out

- patiently peeling envelopes open instead of ripping them apart, so that we can recycle them for internal use at our workplaces

- sifting through our junk mail to salvage flyers with only one printed side, so that we can use the blank sides as note paper

- recycling old newspapers, magazines, junk mail

- recycling punched out paper - yes those little paper polka dots can be recycled too!

- sorting old bills and letters and bringing them to the office for shredding

- saving cardboard packaging from products that we buy, and flat-packing them for easy storage (we don't have much space in our home and whilst waiting for collection day we can't just chuck all these in the storeroom  - we have none!)

- saving pretty fashion tags for re-use as bookmarks or gift tags

- sorting our recyclable stash into paper, plastics, fabrics

- bringing our own shopping bags whenever situation or cargo permits

- I also avoid buying products with unnecessary, excessive packaging. Have you seen how much plastic and paper some manufacturers use to box up one thumbdrive? Enough to box up 20! My pet peeve, for sure. To be truly green, we can't just rely on recycling alone - we need to cut waste at its source. Why consume what we don't need in the first place?

I think that's about all. I realise I have not done much in conserving electricity and water though. Gotta work on that.

In an earlier post, I talked about the excessive, and more often than not, unnecessary use of plastic and paper in product packaging. Over the weekend, Thomas and I went shopping and our purchases included a couple of these eco-unfriendly examples.

• Vitagen Collagen - each plastic bottle came labelled, a second layer of plastic on which design elements and product information were printed. They could have printed directly onto the bottle (like the normal Vitagens) instead of using the plastic labels, which serve no practical purpose.
  
  
• Seahorse Pillows - we bought two from the neck support series. Each pillow came wrapped in plastic. which we felt was OK in this case, for hygiene reasons. No sense skimping on the necessary. However, each plastic-wrapped pillow was also individually packed in a heavy cardboard box, which was a complete waste of resources in our opinion. The pillows aren't fragile and don't need the protection of an extra box. If the purpose of the box was to carry product information, they could have replaced the box with a simple one-sheet flyer which they can slot under the clear plastic cover.

 

Just some real-life examples which I wanted to highlight. I'll add to the list as I encounter more instances.

Local media has been giving a lot of attention of late to environmental issues, thanks to Mediacorp's Green Campaign, an initiative that kicked off on 7th July 2007 (070707) with the Live Earth Concert. Last night's news carried a segment about the balance of business/consumerism with saving the Earth. Midway through the report, I glanced at the NEA recycling bags sitting in the corner of our living room, and simply had to agree that businesses have a big part to play in our efforts to go green.

Thomas and I are fairly diligent when it comes to conserving and recycling. I sort through old documents regularly - those with both sides printed go into the recycling bag, those with one side blank are set aside as note paper. Junk mail, old magazines, flyers and receipts are collected and stashed into the bag as well, and envelopes are brought to the office for reuse. Since years ago we stopped sending greeting cards altogether, opting to design little e-cards of our own - personalised and environmentally friendly. These are the little green things we do, small efforts which we hope make up the big picture.

But then there are things we realise are out of our hands. The amount of plastic that we end up putting into the recycling bag, for example. Empty shampoo and detergent bottles - some brands just aren't available in foil packets. Shrink wrap from magazines - why can't they simply tape the sides and stick on a mailing label? Loads and loads of plastic packaging to make products look larger than life. Last weekend I bought a canvas case for my Ipod Nano and it came in a hard plastic shell 4 times its size. And last month, a tube of sunscreen that came in a plastic box. Why do I need the box? The sunscreen's sitting securely enough in the tube, thank you.

What's the big deal, some may ask. You send these plastic boxes for recycling, don't you? The thing is, we won't even need to recycle any of these, if these unnecessary trash weren't even generated in the first place. It's a lose-lose situation really. The companies spend extra effort on the packaging in the production line, the consumers pay for the plastic frills in the final price, and then at the end of the day it just happily ends up in the trash, expending more effort as it goes into a recycling factory, or worse, occupying a piece of our Earth while she lasts, its non-biodegradable soul continuing to haunt the galaxy after Earth's destruction...
 
This is a discussion that has been done to death by many others, I shan't go on.
So, yes, businesses out there, hear hear! There are big things to be done for the environment!