The news today wasn’t so great. It was a toss up between a piano playing cat and an article on Newton Running shoes whose “green” packaging was actually not so green. I figured the cat wouldn’t mind so its the article on green packaging. The gist of the story is that after remodeling their packaging to include 100% recycled content and moulding it to fit only the shoes, it was found that the effort needed to produce and transport this packaging made it even more environmentally infriendly than if they had used new cardboard and regular boxes. The article is here http://www.greenerdesign.com/news/2009/02/11/newton-running-shoes-learn-a-lesson-green-packaging/
I think it says something about the green movement when such issues are not seriously evaluated before they go live. I know of so many “initiatives” that actually set the environment back considerably in the name of “green”. It seems like every commercial entity wants to get on that bandwagon without really understanding the real issues on sustainability. There were cases such as the move to sugarcane or straw pulp paper which was supposed to save trees but whose production resulted in so much toxic chemical waste that the idea of going full steam with it was ludicrous. There are also cases where companies like Office Depot put environmentally friendly labels on products such as mechanical pencils because they are environmentally friendly in the way it is reuseable and not because the production of the end product and raw materials used was sustainable.
Even the so-called wind and solar farms for energy eat up environmental space and are a hazard to the wildlife around it. At the end of the day, I applaud the movement towards sustainable and green initiatives, but I do believe we need a body that evaluates these initiatives more carefully before they are allowed to be labelled as such.
Tong Hsien-Hui
Some Meowsings...... 