Conservation Quick Wins.

Global Warming has certainly been accelerated by the amount of hot air expended on discussing and pontificating on recycling and renewable energy. Every politician, aspiring politician, TV Producer who has run out of creative ideas and 4 X 4 owners trying to pretend they care – “I may drive a Chelsea Tractor but I get paperless statements on my E-energy account” has an opinion to share and a meaningless docudrama or article to fill the white space on the Telly or in a newspaper.

It has become like a game of fridge magnet scrabble with the words used in random order – Eco-Local, Initiative, Solar, Green Drinks, Wildlife Friendly, Recycling, Beanstalk, BikeStreet, Green Champions, Sustainable, Carbon Offsets, etc; etc; etc;. No doubt there are germs and substance somewhere in there when we eventually separate the wood from the trees in the Great Eco Forest but why not start with two initiatives which pass the John Cleese “Bleeding Obvious” test as complete no-brainers and can be done now?

Instead of recycling why not avoid the cycle in the first place? Let us now agree to humanely put down those two old friends who are well past their sell by date: Plastic Bags and Junk Mail.

In the Republic of Ireland a 15 cent tax on plastic shopping bags has cut their use by more than 90% and raised millions of euros in revenue.The Irish environment ministry estimated that about 1.2 billion free plastic bags were being handed out every year in the republic, leaving windblown bags littering Irish streets and the countryside. In the three months after the tax was introduced, shops handed out just over 23 million plastic bags - about 277 million fewer than normal, the government said. Think of it, in a small country like Ireland they have reduced plastic bag use by over 1 Billion bags a year – the equivalent figure for the UK would be in excess of 16 Billion bags of hydrocarbon derived products. This would reduce oil refinery output far more than Airline Passenger Duty or hybrid cars.

There is one obvious disadvantage. The UK would lose its “National Flower”, the plastic bags which grow on hedgerows, waste ground, concrete streets and every water course in the land. Och Aye, wee Gordon, an environmental win and more tax revenues, what is stopping you introducing a 15p plastic bag tax? Some well funded industry lobby group?

The other quick win is self evident in every hallway in the land. Did you know over ½ million tonnes of junk mail is generated in the UK every year? 1 tonne of junk mail is the equivalent of 17 trees so that is eight and a half million trees which die in a needless silvicide each year! That’s 390,000 acres of forest! Put it another way: The average person in the U.K. receives 4kg of junk mail annually and 90% of all junk mail goes straight into the bin. That’s around 224 million kg of junk mail which immediately goes into our bins and that is a conservative estimate based on the dubious premise that the 10% of junk mail which is not immediately binned is in someway useful.

Last week my “Free” local paper come through the letter box with 3 colour inserts. Only there were 8 copies of two inserts and 11 copies of the other, 27 enclosures which went straight to bin. This is the junk mail equivalent of fly tipping and equally a form of anti-social behaviour worthy of being commemorated in the ASBO Hall of Shame. Two weeks away and as well as stamped addressed letters I find 37 items of what the Royal Mail calls “Door to Door Mailings” or unsolicited junk mail addressed to nobody or to that ubiquitous creature “The Occupier”!

So here is the modest proposal, ban “Door to Door Mailings” and compensate the Royal Mail and other delivery companies by doubling the postage on unsolicited mailings. Ban magazine & newspaper inserts, the advertisers will spend the same money in other ways and who knows you could be forcing them to spend their money more effectively.

Above all these two initiatives are about changing behaviour. Shoppers will use reusable or paper bags and advertisers will spend their money in more effective ways than in winding up potential customers by creating avalanche risks in their hallways. The industry which styles junk mail as “Direct Mail” obviously has an advanced sense of humour and the joke is at our environment’s expense.

That’s it! Cut out more than 16 Billion plastic bags and 224 Million kg of junk mail a year and change the habits of a wasteful lifetime into the bargain. Now wouldn’t that cut back on copious hot air and save more than all the proposed environmental initiatives this year? Why are we waiting?