Today we have the last beautiful photo from Malawi, Africa, where our planting partner RIPPLE Africa has finished another successful planting season. About 1.5 million trees being planted on December and January.
In the photo you can see Agnes Nyakayira of the Chigwiti Afforestation club, and I hope you recognize the logo in the sign :)
We hope you enjoyed all the photos we published here on our blog as part of our celebration of the end of another successful planting season in Malawi. All of the photos will be available very soon on our planting gallery, together with many other beautiful photos from our planting partners.
Once again, thank you to RIPPLE Africa for their dedicated work in Malawi. We're proud to be part of it!
We got great feedbacks and we thank all the readers who added their comments on this blog, as well as other places on the web where this article was mentioned. And we have a winner!
The winner who was chosen by Justine Locke is Brooke, who wrote the following:
"The art world has a similar issue when it comes to resales at auctions. Europe resolved it by giving a portion of the profits to the artists, but ONLY at auctions, not private resales."
Congrats to Brooke, who won one of Justin Locke's books! She will be able to choose between Real Men Don't Rehearse, his very popular and laugh-out-loud musical memoir of his playing days with the Boston Pops (see the writeup in this month's International Musician Magazine) , and his new book, Principles of Applied Stupidity (How to get and Do More by Thinking and Knowing Less). Find out more about each book and his other publications and his professional speaking at www.justinlocke.com
We thank Justine Locke again for bringing up this important issue and we will keep you updated in the future in his efforts to establish a new model for the book business.
How green is your toilet paper? not sure? here's the guide that will give you the answers: Greenpeace has just released on Monday its latest Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide.
The report is providing customers with important information about tissue products and toilet paper using 3 criteria: usage of 100% recycled paper, at least 50% post consumer recycled paper and bleached without toxic chlorine compounds.
Each category includes ranking of brands, where products that meet 3 criteria are recommended, products that meet 2 criteria are defined as "can do better" and products that meet only one or no criteria at all are "to be avoided".
Let's focus for a minute on toilet paper, the most popular product among the ones reviewed in this report. The brand in the first place is Green Forest, which uses 100 percent recycled and 90 percent post-consumer content, as well as chlorine-free manufacturing processes. Other brands that are also recommended are: 365, Natural Value and Seventh Generation.
And who's to be avoided? well, when it comes to toilet paper you will find there few familiar names: Scott, Target, Wal-Mart, Kleenex Cottonelle, Chramin, Quilted Northern and Angel Soft. According to the report they all use zero recycled paper (and of course zero post consumer content) and are bleached with chlorine compounds [just take into consideration the follwoing comment from Greenpeace: In the few cases where companies did not respond to our request for verification of recycled content percentages and whitening processes used, we assumed 0% overall recycled, 0% post-consumer recycled and ECF bleaching.]
The report is followed by a very interesting article in the New York Times ("Mr. Whipple Left It Out: Soft Is Rough on Forests" by Leslie Kaufman), where I learned the astonishing fact that "tissue from 100 percent recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales for at-home use among conventional and premium brands."
Why? well, according the article the main reason that toilet paper made of recycled paper is not as soft as toilet paper that is made of trees. Actually the article explains "it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them."
In other places around the globe the situation is in some way better and in Europe and Latin America, products with recycled content make up about on average 20 percent of the at-home market.
The price for the American's love for softness is very high - the article brings another devastating fact: "25 percent to 50 percent of the pulp used to make toilet paper in this country comes from tree farms in South America and the United States. The rest, environmental groups say, comes mostly from old, second-growth forests that serve as important absorbers of carbon dioxide...In addition, some of the pulp comes from the last virgin North American forests, which are an irreplaceable habitat for a variety of endangered species, environmental groups say."
And it doesn't end with trees - there are the water and energy required in the process of turning a tree into rolls of toilet paper, and there's also the polluting chlorine-based bleach process used to achieve greater whiteness.
Who's to blame? well, Kimberly-Clark, which says it's the American consumer who "like the softness and strength that virgin fibres provides". I wounder if these consumers would make the same choice if they knew that for example 14 percent of the wood pulp used by Kimberly-Clark came from the Boreal forest in Canada.
The answer unfortunately is that in this case we cannot count on the consumer nor on the companies who make huge profits out of these soft papers (An article in the Guardian states that "paper manufacturers such as Kimberly-Clark have identified luxury brands such as three-ply tissues or tissues infused with hand lotion as the fastest-growing market share in a highly competitive industry.").
Even if consumers in the U.S. will become more aware of their toilet paper's footprint and choose to buy more recycled paper, my guestimation is that recycled paper usage will be no higher than in Europe (20%). And that's the optimistic scenario.
So what's the solution? in one word: regulation. We need global and local regulation that will ban first and foremost the use of ancient forests for manufacturing tissue products. We also need regulation that will put a price tag on the environmental damages made here, so when you buy toilet paper, you will pay their real price and not a price that ignores the environmental costs. Only this way a real change can be achieved. It's the same with plastic bags and with many other bad habits we have. Voluntary steps just don't do enough or do too little and we can't afford too many years of this softness obsession to keep going on. We just can't.
I'll be happy to hear more ideas and thoughts how to end American's obsession to soft toilet paper. Please add your comment!
Today we have another beautiful photo from Malawi, Africa, where our planting partner RIPPLE Africa has finished another successful planting season. About 1.5 million trees being planted on December and January.
In the photo you can see Walter and Milika with a 3 year old Senderella tree.
Tomorrow we have the last photo so don't forget to check it out.
Interested in green publishing? Tomorrow, February 26, 2 pm EST, Publishers Weekly and Green Press initiative will co-host a webcast titled “Successful “Green” Publishing: Production Marketing and Beyond."
What's it's going to be about? Here's the description from the event's website:
Even in today’s economy, it is possible and advantageous to be an environmentally responsible publisher. There are savings to be found in everything from reducing energy costs to basis weights. This free and informative webcast discussion will feature publishers who have made the commitment to be environmental leaders in publishing and have benefited. Attendees will learn how to be proactive about environmental initiatives that can help build recognition for one title or an entire program and will also discover the many ways that green practices can both support all areas of their publishing program as well as the environment.
Panelists include Mary Choteborsky, associate publishing manager and associate editor at Crown, Judy Galbraith, founder and president of Free Spirit Publishing,Tona Pearce-Myers, Production Director at New World Library. The webcast will be moderated by Tyson Miller, Founder and Director, Green Press Initiative.
The inaugural showing of SUCCESSFUL “GREEN” PUBLISHING: Production, Marketing, and Beyond is on February 26, 2009 at 2:00 PM EST, and will be available from the webcast archive for one year following the initial webcast. You can listen to it at no cost - you just need to register.
This should be a very interesting webcast and we recommend anyone involved or interested in the green publishing to listen to it. We will cover it on our blog in a couple of days so stay tuned.
For more details and to listen to the webcast click HERE
We continue to present you with photos from Malawi, Africa, where our planting partner RIPPLE Africa has finished another successful planting season. About 1.5 million trees being planted on December and January.
Today we have a beautiful photo of tree seedlings at Chgwiti tree nursery.
We have two more photos to show you (on Wednesday and Thursday) so stay tuned!
AIR,headquartered at StetsonUniversity, has received a grant for $8,200 from the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to build brick stoves in Maya communities in Sololá, Guatemala.
“It is a small grant, but for AIR to be recognized by the United Nations in an extraordinarily competitive area, is very exciting,” said Dr. Anne Hallum, Stetson professor of Political Science and U.S. chair of the reforestation program. “AIR has always worked closely with Maya leaders in dozens of communities, so it is appropriate to have a grant from this particular U.N. Forum.”
AIR plants trees, establishes tree nurseries and provides environmental education in Central America. Stetson students volunteer with the organization during six-week programs, working side-by-side with local AIR staff in Guatemala. Since 1993, AIR has trained more than 1,500 Guatemalan farmers, provided materials for more than 700 fuel-efficient stoves and planted more than 3 million trees. In 2004, AIR was recognized by the Guatemalan government’s forestry institute as the most effective nongovernmental environmental organization.
The U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is described on its Web site as “an advisory body to the Economic and Social Council, with a mandate to discuss indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights.”
AIR is working with Eco-Libris since 2007 and you can read more on our collaboration on AIR first year's assessment, which is available at http://www.ecolibris.net/AIR_Assessment.pdf
Congrats to AIR and to Dr. Hallum for this grant and the recognition of their important work in Guatemala by the U.N.! You can read more about AIR at http://www2.stetson.edu/air
Founded in 2007, Eco-Libris is a green company working to green up the book industry in the digital age by promoting the adoption of green practices in the book industry, balancing out books by planting trees, and helping to make e-reading greener.
To achieve these goals Eco-Libris is working with book readers, publishers, authors, bookstores and others in the book industry worldwide. So far Eco-Libris balanced out over 179,500 books, which results in more than 200,000 new trees planted with its planting partners in developing countries.
