Killing less trees
I love quotes at the end of emails. Some can be quite quirky, rude, poetic, philosophical and bloody hilarious.
I saw this one today in an email
'They kill good trees to put out bad newspapers.' ~James G. Watt, quoted in Newsweek, 8 March 1982
This one got me thinking about the story behind our resources and the responsibility we have in using them well. Just looking at the amount of paper I use in my everyday life...it makes me question 'Do I recycle enough?!' or even 'Do I print unnecessarily?'
I often forget that my paper, a book, a letter is all coming from an amazing source - trees. It is so basic, but it never clicks that I am using up trees, and if I'm not careful I could be destroying them when I really do not need to. There is a high demand for paper, it is everywhere and it will be very unlikely in the near future that we won't need paper at all. So perhaps it's about working out how to better use our resources and be aware that resources CAN RUN OUT!
The most important thing to realise is that something you have in your hand, whether it's a mobile phone, a scarfe, a coffee, a handbag, has all come from somewhere else and has been created because people like you and me have a want and demand for it. Little do we realise the impact we can make on our choices about where all of this 'stuff' comes from.
Take the scarfe for example (and I am a huge culprit in ridiculous accumulation of scarfes!). It's a beautiful silky material, with various patterns in the dyed material and with little tassles at the end. A very pretty scafe....and even better because I got it on sale for $10.
Now that $10 goes to the shop I bought it from. And they paid money to purchase it to then sell it on. The shop would have to (you would hope) make a profit on the scarfe, so we can say they perhaps bought it for $6. That money goes to the distributor. The distributor bought it from a little factory in say northern Thailand who sold the original garment for $2.50. The factory then has to pay it's workers for making the scarfe and also for the materials used. Just imagine what the workers would be paid?! Pittance I believe. Let's not even think about the conditions they work in.
There is a story behind everything you buy including paper and scarfes. The workers in the factory are making scarfes because there are people like me who love pretty red scafes with little tassles on the ends. There is a demand from societies for this product. They deliver the demand. And deliver it well.
Then perhaps, we can demand for different things associated with our 'stuff'. For example, I may want this lovely scarfe, but I am happy to pay a decent amount which is then gauranteed to reach the workers to provide fair pay and better working conditions. I am looking right at ethical consumerism.
We do have a choice in what we buy and where that comes from. Lets think about the choices we make in buying our 'stuff', remember there are stories behind them. If we all start asking about the history of our things and what we consume, we will create a demand for better and fairer pay and improved working conditions, improved use and production of products using the environment. All of our other demands in society have been answered...smaller faster computers, better phones, more cheap clothes, massive variety of food and drink, better communication technology etc etc. Maybe we can just demand something a little bit extra!