Even more reason to be green

Back in December, Live Earth asked readers to post comments on their green holidays. I was perusing these responses when I stumbled upon this jewel of an answer:

"The most effective way to go green is to stop buying newly manufactured products, stop buying anything made in China, stop spending your money at big box stores which usually trash the environment and basic workers rights.

Instead, give a service (massage, car wash, child care, yard work, tech support, catered meal, etc.), a hand-made gift by you, or a local craftsperson, something recycled and refurbished. Resolve to only purchase locally made food, products," posted by Kayla.

What an intensely powerful statement. A statement that really sums up all of the important issues of today.

get real this christmas

Literally - the David Suzuki Foundation says you should buy a real Christmas tree over an artificial one.

Justin Smallbridge, who researched the issue for the foundation, said it's better for the environment since - for the most part - they are grown and sold locally, produce oxygen, are fully recyclable, and, once cut, are replaced with at least two more seedlings.

According to Statistics Canada, real Christmas tree sales were worth $73.9 million in 2005. About 2.4 million trees were exported to places as far away as Ireland and Thailand. Up to six million trees are grown in Canada each year.

But not everyone wants to get real. According again to StatsCan, $36.6 million was spent importing artificial trees from China in 2005.

Full article from the Vancouver Province >>

To China With Plastic

Okay, so it's not exactly a great title for the next James Bond flick, but it does describe what happens to some of our "unrecycleable" plastics after we chuck them into the bluebox.

It recently came out in the wash that a large amount of the plastics collected by municipal recycling programs are wrapped up and sold to Chinese interests rather than being processed right here in North America. To add fuel to the controversy, it also happens that these plastics are sold to China at a loss, leaving taxpayers on the hook for the bulk of the collection and sorting costs. With all the other issues about Chinese products and standards in the news these days it would be natural to jump onto a high horse and proclaim once and for all that China is an irresponsible industrial nation. But don't get that horse out of the barn yet. The deeper you look into this story the more blurry it gets in terms of fault.

Many municiplities simply choose to landfill their mixed plastics - those that have no market for resale in North America - rather than bother to sort them at all. It turns out few markets exists where these plastics can be sold. With homegrown mixed-plastic recycling efforts having so far failed, the choices seem to be landfill it cheaply or sell it to Asia at a loss. Greenpeace condemns the export choice and advocates instead for a domestic recycling program. Politicians and businessmen say it just isn't profitable to recycle mixed plastics in today's marketplace.

It looks to me like an opportunity. Surely someone out there - and I mean North America - has the smarts or courage or plain old good morals (backed by money, of course) to champion a market for our bastard plastics. Or maybe the packagers need to be involved at the front end to ensure less of this stuff hits the curb in the first place. There are solutions in them-there hills of garbage....

It's not all bad news. The vast majority of stuff we attempt to recycle does find a profitable home. But is that enough? No, we can always do better. And wouldn't it feel good to not blame China for our problems....

Read the article for a more in-depth look at this issue:

http://news.therecord.com/article/233153