Two examples.
Here in Australia, McDonalds are responsible for 84 million take away cups going into landfill every year.
Approximately 8.2 billion articles of unaddressed junk mail are produced and delivered to Australian households every year. As well as 650 million articles of addressed promotional mail.
This equates to approximately a quarter of a million tonnes of paper every year. 2.6 million trees are cut down each year to enable this junk mail to be delivered to our mailboxes. 80% of which goes straight into the bin unread.
Currently the onus is on the householder to stop the delivery of junk mail into their letter boxes by displaying āNo Junk Mail Signageā most of which are ignored by the person making the delivery. Once again, the onus is on the household to report to the authorities the unlawful delivery of junk mail into signed letterboxes.
Businesses would lobby politicians if junk mail was to be made illegal. Suppression of trade, higher costs to businesses to only deliver āaddressed mailā. The printing industry would be āup in armsā as they generate huge profits from producing the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of junk mail destined for landfill.
No doubt, the weak politicians will listen to industry and not make physical junk mail illegal.
Bretrickās rant for the day.
Big business are only interested in one thingā¦profit, if it suits them to push a green agenda because it affects,or thereās more profit, sadly this is global with some leaders now ignoring the dangers of climate change no wonder the planet is doomedā¦
Large businesses only measure of success is profit and shareholder dividend. They do not care about their employees - apart from a very few at the very top. They say they care, but only insofar as retaining a capable workforce - otherwise it is invest and pay as little as needed. They do not care about the health of the countries they operate in - that costs money. They do not care about any detrimental impact their products might have - waste (as noted), environmental damage, people damage. Businesses will only change profitable products if they become less profitable or if regulation forces them. And they will spend millions fighting such regulation.
So what does that give us? In the UK (and in the US) it ends up with poisoned waterways. Globally is means poisonous chemicals that destroy ecosystems are still sold in many countries - even though banned for good reason in others. It means social media businesses are more than happy to reduce monitoring and suppression of hate speech, bullying, etc. It means financial businesses risk entire economies so that they can get rich from high risk bets.
And some people still think unchecked capitalism is the only answer.
And also the move to provide so called āsustainableā energy is a myth.
Nothing is sustainable, it still uses up the earths resources and just moves pollution to somewhere else.
Example:- Two turbines that supply endless electricity burning gas will supply over 1.5 gW of power and only require 20 Acres, whereas it will take 300 turbines that occupy thousands of acres of land to deliver the sameā¦And lets not forget the massive lithium batteries needed to store the power for perhaps an hour of supply for 30,000 houses.
No Brainerā¦
I believe the whole picture is not being looked at and some bios may be blocking the view.
As mentioned, paper is being recycled and as mentioned there are a lot of trees being harvested for paper production. Most paper is from the wood that canāt be used as lumber in other products. Itās basically the waste of the tree thatās being used to produce paper, heating pellets, pressed board etc.
The percentage of trees being cut down for paper is Minimal. I could go deeper in the main reason trees are being cut down but one thing, trees are a replaceable commodity.
No sure how all the countries postal systems work, but junk mail pay a large portion of the cost of mail service. Normal mail has has been reduced enormously with new tech knowledge and multiple different mailing services, UPS, FEDEX, DHL etc.
Paper plants use a lot of water but they recycle the water the use and are some of the companies that do more to the environment protection because the depend on the the land and rivers for their products.
