Environment

The Truth About Recycling

- Adam Clare 10 Comments

The Economist looks into the truth about recycling and they have discovered some neat things. Of course, there are some complications with recycling, and it’s important to remind ourselves that nothing is perfect, but it’s good that we aim for perfection. Recycling is a really really good thing to do.

Based on this study, WRAP calculated that Britain’s recycling efforts reduce its carbon-dioxide emissions by 10m-15m tonnes per year. That is equivalent to a 10% reduction in Britain’s annual carbon-dioxide emissions from transport, or roughly equivalent to taking 3.5m cars off the roads. Similarly, America’s Environmental Protection Agency estimates that recycling reduced the country’s carbon emissions by 49m tonnes in 2005.

Recycling has many other benefits, too. It conserves natural resources. It also reduces the amount of waste that is buried or burnt, hardly ideal ways to get rid of the stuff. (Landfills take up valuable space and emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas; and although incinerators are not as polluting as they once were, they still produce noxious emissions, so people dislike having them around.) But perhaps the most valuable benefit of recycling is the saving in energy and the reduction in greenhouse gases and pollution that result when scrap materials are substituted for virgin feedstock. “If you can use recycled materials, you don’t have to mine ores, cut trees and drill for oil as much,” says Jeffrey Morris of Sound Resource Management, a consulting firm based in Olympia, Washington.

Internet Saves Millions of Tons of Carbon

- Adam Clare

Keyboard
The internet is quite kind for the environment, which I guess is why good news appears on this website and not on paper handed out on city streets. Ecogeek has a post about a published report on how much carbon is saved by using the internet.

E-Commerce will reduce emissions by 200 M tons
-Telecommuting will prevent 250 tons of carbon emissions from reduced driving, 30 tons from reduced office construction and 300 tons of energy savings
-Teleconferencing could prevent 200 M tons of carbon emissions (if it replaces 10% of face-to-face meetings.)
-Shifting newspaper from print to digital could save 60 M tons of carbon
-Digitally shipping other goods, such as music, movies and books would also contribute.

Coincidentally, an email arrived from a reader and wants to let people know about his new venture ensuring the internet continues to supports people who try to live green, GreenPDF:

FormRouter has declared war on paper forms and is offering free training
and educational resources to get organizations to create their own
online PDF forms.

We are doing this because paper forms are an environmental disaster. It
is estimated that 80% of all organization documents are paper forms.

Bible printed on FSC-Certified paper.

- Cam Proctor

The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Daily Bible is printed on paper that includes recycled content and comes from forestlands certified by the Rainforest Alliance’s SmartWood program, the leading certifier of forestlands to FSC standards.

Kudos to Thomas Nelson, Domtar and Green Press Initiative for working together to achieve this important first in the publishing industry,” said Tensie Whelan, executive director of the Rainforest Alliance. “This is further evidence of the growing trend among publishers to improve their sourcing strategies and lessen their environmental impact by seeking out environmentally preferable papers.

Environmentalists Sue Harper, Bali Begins

- Adam Clare

I’ve never been shy about my dislike of Canada’s current Prime Minister and today won’t be any different. Regular readers of Things Are Good may have noticed that other countries get mentioned often here because their national government take positive action. Three nations, though, get mentioned not because of federal efforts but because of local ones. Those nations are Australia, Canada, and the USA. I’m confident that there is a connection between the lack of good news coming from those national governments and how popular their leaders are. Howard just lost his election and Bush is at an all time low. (EDIT: Australia ratifies Kyoto Protocol! Way to go Rudd!)

The conservatives in Canada are now being sued by an environmental group. I’m sure that the timing of the lawsuit is to draw attention to the potential that Canada has for being a leader in fighting global warming at the UN’s climate change conference in Bali, which started today.

Major policies will be shaped by the countries listed above (among others) over the course of the next two weeks. Stay tuned for the good news that will come from the UN conference.

While in Canada, the environmentalist will continue to fight up north:

The group, Friends of the Earth, alleges that Environment Minister John Baird has broken the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, by ignoring a recent requirement of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.

The act was passed by Parliament in June 2007.

The lawsuit contends that Ottawa was legally required to publish draft regulations by Oct. 20, 2007, which would have enabled Canada to follow its Kyoto commitments, but failed to do so.

“This new application, while relevant to climate change, is all about holding the government of Canada accountable under Canadian law,” said lawyer Chris Paliare, who filed the legal challenge on behalf of the group.

Scroll To Top