Tetrapak Advertising

N

niallymac

Guest
Tetrapak are currently engaged in a hugely misleading advertising campaig, implying they are responsible for wide ranging sustainable forestry initiatives.

It annoys me greatly that they promote this clean green tree planting image, when in reality the tetrapak carton has been a major contributor to significant environmental problems over the years, ranging from the waste of the production process to the disposal of the used cartons. The waxed multi layer nature of the carton makes recycling particularly difficult.

It may be less environmentally damaging than plastic packaging, but get real Tetrapak, sourcing materials form countries that are engaged in sustainable forestry initiatives hardly entitles you to engage in this mass deception.
 
McDonalds are at it too...harping on about the nutritional information in their food!

I never realised cardboard was nutritional.
 
This is exactly what 'recycling' is all about. Recycling damages our environment, causes waste, uses up valuable resources and has an negative effect on our economy.

Companies do this for spin. This is what the public want to hear ..fine let's give it to them.
 
Recycling

True Blue - in what does recycling do all that you say?Are you suggesting that we are wasting time sticking cardboard and paper in the green bin or going to the bottle bank? Can you support your assertion re damage to the environment etc with hard facts?

I'd like to know if recycling is a waste of time or not and what problems it causes.
 
I'd sooner trust links like these than controversialists like True Blue for authoritative advice on this issue:

[broken link removed]
www.enfo.ie
 
I seem to remember having a similar conversation with TB about this a while back. I can't find the post now though. He was trying to convince me that we needed more dumps or something and that recycling had no value :\
 
Recycling should not be either rejected out of hand or embraced without questioning it.

At least some recycling is very wasteful of resources. I am sure that if you do the calculations, you would find that making a special trip to the recycling centre is probably a net waste of resources. Dropping the bottles in the bottle bank on the way past is probably justified. Before the days of paper collection, I have seen people driving across the city to deliver paper to somewhere in Ballymount for recycling. This made them feel good, but was a waste of resources.

A good starting point to ask the right questions is Bjorn Lomborg's The Sceptical Environmentalist which challenges most conventional environmental wisdom. You will probably disagree with most of what he says, but at least, it will get you thinking.

Brendan
 
> I am sure that if you do the calculations, you would find that making a special trip to the recycling centre is probably a net waste of resources.

I presume you're assuming a motorised vehicle in this context? I walk to the local Bring centre with my recyclable waste which means that I also benefit from a little light exercise! :)
 
even if you drive, you are humping stuff in and out of the car

sure the petrol is there already you pay enought to run a motor and who doesnt have fun smashing the bottles into the bank!

:)
 
Bring back returnable bottles and deposit refunds at the time of return ...

No need for TetraP

Hardly any need for bottle banks
 
I agree that we should question recycling. This subject is quite similar to the one about telethon and conscience abatement. Also related to this .

To try to keep it on-track can I ask True Blue to share some of his logic in not reccyling . Also can you please tell us if you disagree with all recycling or do you discriminate?


Nat
 
Recycling

I think we tend to forget the order of priority for dealing with the waste problem. It is:

1. Reduce.

2. Re-use.

3. Re-cycle.

4. Incinerate or landfill.


There is certainly room for debate about whether there is all that much of a gap between item 3 and item 4 above. But there is so much to be done on items 1 and 2 above that I don't think we should be getting hung up on whether the Bring Centre has a net benefit.

I get the impression that many people are quite happy to :

have a chinese takeaway three times a week (to be fair, at least they now come in a re-useable plastic container - very handy for freezing food - but all that wrapping!);

get pizzas and frozen ready-meals wrapped in plastic AND boxed in cardboard,

buy fruit drinks in "multipak" small portions - all of which are in shrinkwrap,

buy washing powder and dishasher tabs in small packs,

buy individually wrapped firelighters,

buy pre-pack vegetables and meat on polystyrene trays,

buy sausages, cheese and cooked meat in pre-sliced "handypak" plastic boxes...........

And then people seem to think that all of this is ok if you just do your weekly penance at the "recycling" centre.

I am not well informed enough to analyse the net benefits of recyling per se. BUT if people are using it as a salve and thereby allowing themselves to ignore the more important issues of reducing and re-using, then we do need to have alook at our priorities.
 
packaging and squandering resources

It is very odd that many organic, ethical products (fairtrade coffee, organic milk/juices) come packaged in substances contributing to serious environmental pollution.

Even Sainsburys (UK) which is "Organic Supermarket of the Year" continues to sell veg and fruit in unrecycleable boxes/trays and its organic juices, milk etc. have all moved into Tetrapac, which has the potential for bright attractive printing.

Consumer pressure is steering even the large supermarket chains into offering cleaner less polluted food. Initially this cost "over the odds" but as the movement has grown prices of organic fruit/veg/milk/juices have come down.

Probably the same consumer pressure will work in terms of non-recyclable packaging, esp. Tetrapac?

There are alternatives. The Co-Op here has a milk-delivery service. You get your milk in old-fashioned glass milk-bottles which you wash and leave out for collection (memories of summer mornings in Dublin, the horse-and-milkwaggon clip-clopping past at 5.00am and rattle of metal crates). There was interest by the Co-Op in offering this system for a broader range of foods (e.g. organic free-range eggs, juices, breads etc.) On many parts of continental Europe glass bottles are accepted for reuse (e.g. Grolsch in Holland). Companies like The Body Shop and Holland and Barratt (the healthfood chain) have responded to consumer pressure by providing in-store bins for cartons which will be reused.

It's a matter of raising awareness and generating enough support including taking time to fill in "Comments and Suggestions" cards in supermarkets and letting them know what you think of their policies and your ideas of less packaging or re-usable packaging rather than recycleable stuff.

Regarding the debate here on the small/nil impact recycling has on environmental wellbeing, the statistics are clear that recycling produces cleaner CONSCIENCE not cleaner ENVIRONMENT so it's a bit of a swizz unless people keep thinking it through! There are huge energy costs in collection, sorting and processing waste, the latter itself producing pollutants.
 
Re: packaging and squandering resources

Would one of those of you knowledgeable on this topic make an [broken link removed] regarding their current campaign? While I have some reservations about the ASAI, it would certainly make an interesting test of Tetrapak's claims - Are they legal, decent, honest & truthful?
 
Re: packaging and squandering resources

Hi Marie

the statistics are clear that recycling produces cleaner CONSCIENCE not cleaner ENVIRONMENT
Click to expand...

Are they that clear? I would have thought that there was no general agreement on this issue.

The organic argument is not just about the environment.Which is better for the environment to buy imported organic food or local inorganic food ( not very digestible, but you know what I mean)?

The organic food may or may not be better tasting, but the transport activity of importing foods must outweigh any environmental benefits.

Brendan
 
selling the dream

Brendan I'm trying to remember where I read about the hidden costs of recycling and think it was probably in The Guardian "Weekend" section a couple of years ago - an excerpt from a just-to-be-published book. Having sorted stuff for recycling "with gusto" up to that point I was very shocked that it had such small effect.

You are of course right in pointing up that locally-produced food in season is the optimal solution. However wouldn't that be possible only if how local communities network were to change? There are about 30 allotments within 2 miles of where I live most producing far more fruit and veg than their renters require for their own use. Problem is they don't know me and I don't know them so there's an issue of information and distribution and no informal community networks. Meanwhile the very poorest families locally (living next to the organic allotments bursting with all kinds of healthy nutritious goodies!) eat take-away pizzas or (so-called!) "fish-and-burger" with a can of coke every evening, at HUGE expense, scattering polystyrene oyster-cartons, greased non-recycleable cardboard etc. as they go.......and are in a poverty trap as well as a poor-health trap. It is so sad that we've never had so much and prospered so little from it! However despite vested interests there are beginning to be some stirrings here in the UK - the most recent about the scandal of the confectionary industry associating their refined-sugar products with kids sporting skills and fitness.
 
selling the dream

> recycling produces cleaner CONSCIENCE not cleaner ENVIRONMENT

Composting kitchen/garden waste produces both as far as I can see.
 
slightly off topic....

....but just wanted to say that I have contacted Superquin recently to ask if it would be acceptable to bring my own re-usable containers for fresh meat/fish/cheese to be put into instead of having to take plastic bags inside plastic bags for each thing. They replied that they had tried a pilot of this a few years ago but it wasn't very successful (although couldn't tell me why). If anyone else is interested in doing the same you can find a contact email address on their website. Perhaps if they received queries from a few other customers they might be willing to look at the issue again. I know you can do this in Germany and it would make my life much easier if I could do it here too, apart from the reducing waste aspect.

Will try and find that book as well, sounds interesting.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top