Hello everyone who believes I ignore this blog. It is I, AGAIN.
So recently at Uni I was shown this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8
And aside from the annoying american accent of the speaker, her over use of loaded language and the simplistic and sometimes inaccurate explanations,
I TOTALLY AGREE WITH HER.
Basically what she said is that the way business uses resources at the moment it completely wasteful. We take our resources, we turn them into things we need, we buy the things we need, we use the things we need and all the rest if discarded.
So lets take a look at all the stuff we throw out:
Bottles, plastic bags, cardboard, broken plates, bowls and other cutlery, food that has gone bad, tissues, tins and various seeds.
So after a quick analyse of what we've actually thrown out I have come to a conclusion that 90% of it (or round abouts) is packaging. So this got me thinking even more, what exactly does packaging do?
Well it:
1. Protects the product during transport
2. Holds the product
3. Advertises the product.
(this is as a general rule as some packaging does other things like keep food cool and stuff like that)
That's not a lot of things. In addition, we could use other things to hold the product. Like imagine going to the super market with a canvas bag to hold your cereal and then you can hold it in a jar when you get home. You can reuse the canvas bag. You can go to the butcher with a container designed to keep food cool, put all the meat you want in it and then put the container in the freezer. No need for plastic containers with are just gonna end up in land fill.
If a system like this could be implemented, then stuff would cost less and there would be much less waste. In addition, the retailer could order product in bulk and in a way that required less packaging like ordering 40 kg of oats in a canvas bag instead of 80 boxes of 500g oats. You'd save so much cardboard and the consumer would save money too! You could buy 1 cardboard sign to say what brand of oats they are and the consumer, the retailer and the world would all save!
You might say I'm being idealistic, but this isn't actually a new system. It was the previous system before all these boxes and packaging. In my mother's time, biscuits were sold individually in paper bags, and people who wanted lots, would bring their tins. Before that, cereals were sold by weight, and consumers would scoop the stuff they need. In fact if you could sell almost all supermarket products like this. Cleaning powders, liquids, and other chemicals or liquids could all be sold like this. Same with and sort of powders, cereals and other simlar products.
But this kind of system doesn't just stop at supermarkets. You know, that electronical waste is also a huge problem. Most of a computer don't change a lot over time, its only things like power supplies, hard drives, CPUs and video cards. All of which can be bought individually. However, parts cost so much these days that its easier and sometimes cheaper to buy a whole new computer! The entire old computer is thrown out. 99% of the computer is still good and can be used! Did you know copper is rare now because of all the electronics we use? Copper is in them all. When we thrown out an old electronic appliance, we throw out the copper. What a waste.
If industry actually made parts cheaper, we would consume copper a LOT slower and we'd still have just as fast and upgraded computer if we bought the parts individually. Better yet, the place you by computers from could have an electrical technician that could upgrade your computer in from of your eyes if you brought it over and asked for it!
This can also be applied for all the Ipads, Iphones and other smart technology. Sure they might not get thinner, but really, how thin do you need it? It sits in your pocket for goodness sake :P
This kind of system could be applied to almost any product! We'd save SOOOO much waste. Also we'd have to produce less, which means we'd useless resources and everyone would save money, and this means you'll have more money to spend on other things. Less use, means more savings.
Wouldn't it be nice?
Thing is, if we don't try something to try and stop the waste, we WILL EVENTUALLY RUN OUT. The world, just can't produce things at the rate we use them.
Someone is gonna have to change the way we do things or there are gonna have to be breaks and we'll have to break HARD. Last time I checked, braking hard can really really hurt.
So maybe one day I'll start a shop that sells stuff cheap and cuts back packaging.... we'll see. Anyway, keep this in mind :)
regards, Jonathan
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
