The chopstick dilemma: is it possible to make the case for disposable chopsticks?
Posted: February 2, 2012 Filed under: BLOG | Tags: disposable chopsticks, environment, plastic, recycling, reusable chopsticks Leave a comment »
In response to my last post in which I called on a hip, Sydney café to replace their disposable chopsticks with reusable ones reader Cas had this to say:
You might want to check if the chopsticks were wood or bamboo. If they are bamboo then they are the most environmentally friendly. Think about it – what kind of impact do you think it has on the environment to produce plastic ones? (which actually have a very short lifespan). Plastic is made in factories using huge amounts of electricity and water, and plastic is made from guess what . . . OIL! There is nothing wrong with disposable wooden or paper products, providing they are from renewable resources and are then recycled afterwards. They actually have the least impact on the environment.
I have to confess I hadn’t taken the damaging environmental effects of plastic into account and she brings up a really great point. I wrote to Cas and asked her (him?) for any data/links to support what she said. Here’s what she said:
Sorry, I don’t have any direct links to data, but I do work in the product and packaging design field, so I encounter these dilemmas often and take note of findings especially as I try to design as eco-friendly products as I possibly can.
I know that bamboo is farmed, renewable, and natural. It does not require fertilizers or large amounts of water to grow. It grows fast and does not necessarily require chemicals to process. Plastic however is made purely from oil by-products and requires large amounts of water plus heat and cooling during manufacturing which also uses fossil fuels. The type of plastic that chopsticks are made from is neither recyclable nor biodegradable. It also has a very short life span – you would be surprised. Some restaurants buy new ones every few months!! So these go to landfill and stays there forever, where-as if properly governed, wooden products can be both pulped and made into other products, or mulched and used in agricultural applications. Therefore continuing a cycle of life rather than having just one life. This is key to good products.
Please don’t get me wrong – I don’t agree at all with businesses using excessive amounts of take away or disposable materials as they are only good if the waste is handled properly, but it is a common misconception that using natural products like wood is bad. Most people do not know where alternative products come from – since the influx in the 50s we have just become accustomed to plastic without considering its impact on the environment.
I decided to put her comments to one of the forests campaigners at the environmental NGO I work for. While he wouldn’t give me a definitive answer he was insistent that – from a forests point of view anyway – reusable over disposable was preferable and added:
In China the bamboo chopsticks are so cheap (2 cents or less per pair), people throw them away as garbage! It costs more to recycle them, and it uses more water and other resources to recycle them that people don’t.
He brings up a good point. In an ideal world disposable bamboo chopsticks might have minimal impact on the environment, but the infrastructure isn’t really in place right now to make that the case. At least not in China. You can’t think about products in isolation – the systems they exist in – and be that needing to change that system – is equally important.
That said, ending our addiction to oil is definitely important. But there is a solution to combine the best of both chopstick worlds. What about sustainably farmed, reusable bamboo chopsticks (and preferably recycled)?
And if you were wondering here in China I carry with me the pictured pair of chopsticks that are made of metal and sustainably sourced wood that comes from an indigenous tribe people in Papua New Guinea. They use wood cut from trees that are old and sick. (And yes, I know I’m coming off as a total new age hippie. Guess I better start working on my dreds!)
Speak up! The world is listening
Posted: January 19, 2012 Filed under: BLOG | Tags: becoming vegetarian, change, misschu, speaking up, sydney dining, vegetarianism 3 Comments »
Last week I stumbled across a cute little cafe called Misschu, down an alley near Bondi Beach. As I sat down and ordered a coffee, I noticed on the table a holding cup full of disposable chopsticks. It’s not something that would have struck me before, but since starting work at Greenpeace I’ve become aware of how disposable chopsticks seriously eats into our forest resources.
Then I took a look around at the tables of other patrons. Their food was being served in throwaway cardboard boxes. My coffee arrived served in a takeaway cup, even though I was eating in. And this bothered me. What a waste! I was used to seeing that prevalence of disposable packaging in Asia but I had always given Australia credit for being fairly environmentally conscious. (Note, this was a Vietnamese eatery and thus took aesthetic cues from that habit.)
I chewed my bottom lip. Do I say something? I wanted to but I was certain the waitress would roll her eyes at me and think to herself, “here we go, another one of those annoying greenies.”
Well, I figured I could bring it up nicely, and that nothing ever changed in this world without someone speaking up. And maybe they have a legitimate reason for the throwaway packaging. That’s the other great thing about speaking up – sometimes you’re wrong, and you learn something new.
I inquired with the waitress and she looked at me embarrassed and apologetic. “Quite a few people have mentioned that, but that’s just how this place has been setup. As a [take-away] canteen.”
While it may appear that my words had little effect, who knows. It has joined the words of other ‘speaker-uper-ers’ past and future that will perhaps accumulate to the point in which Misschu’s owner decides to offer a non-disposable option for diners eating in.
Vegetarianism too is something that dawned on me slowly (technically I’m more of a “social meat-eater”, in the same way that some people are “social drinkers” or “social smokers”.) It was like losing contact with a friend, but realizing that maybe it’s for the best. There was a major contributing factor to this new found eating habit. I became friends with a vegetarian couple, even living with them for one month while I was homeless. The guy of the couple was quite hectoring about vegetarianism. He’d rattle off statistics and facts about the environmental benefits of vegetarianism, or more often, lecture me on the health dangers of eating meat.
Sometimes he’d say things like, “One day we’re going to think of meat the same way we think of cigarettes. There’s going to be sold in the 18+ section with warning labels all over them.”
At the time I though little of it, and would humor him by nodding with eyes glazed over. Little did I know his words were squirreling their way into my mind. His nagging motherly ways finally got to me.
Other small factors: many of my workmates and other friends are vegetarian and in eating with them I was introduced to a lot of yummy vegetarian dishes. And now that I’m cooking for myself more, meat dishes is more expensive.
In activism, it’s not uncommon to face the question, “but don’t you think this is all a waste of time? People won’t listen. Or they’ll listen, but they won’t actually change.” I like to remind people:
1. You don’t know what impact your words or actions might have. Just as I, at the time, seemed pretty unresponsive to my vegetarian friend’s lecturing, with much persistence he eventually wore me down.
2. You are one drop, of a large tidal wave. My friend alone probably wouldn’t have converted me into vegetarianism, but together the multitudes of influences did.
Read part two of this post: The chopstick dilemma: disposable vs. reuseable, bamboo vs. plastic
Is it better to ask citizens to stop bad behaviors or start positive ones?
Posted: January 18, 2012 Filed under: BLOG | Tags: activism, campaigning, environmentalism, slip slop slap, start campaigning, stop campaigning, sunsmart, Winter B-icicle Challenge, world carfree day 1 Comment »Yesterday I talked about ‘positive vs. negative messaging‘ in activism, but today I want to talk about something I’m not exactly sure the terms of. But for now I’ll just name it ‘start campaigning’ and ‘stop campaigning’.
‘Stop campaigning’ is all about asking people to stop or reduce how much they do something. ‘Start campaigning’, as you can guess, is all about asking people to start doing something. I’ll use a few examples to illustrate:
Australia has one of the highest rates of skin cancer incidence in the world, and accordingly also an ongoing skin cancer awareness campaign for over thirty years now. Back when I was a kid in the 80s SunSmart Australia had a super-catchy decade long campaign with the line “Slip! Slop! Slap!”. Even now I can remember what those three words meant – slip on a shirt, slop on some sunscreen, slap on a hat. It’s a great example of ‘start campaigning’. Thanks to this successful campaign Aussies around the country started wearing sunscreen, hats and other protective gear.
According to the SunSmart site, “as the public became more aware of the Slip! Slop! Slap! message, SunSmart began to focus on telling people how they can reduce their skin cancer risk and how to identify changes to their own skin that may be a sign of skin cancers.”
And one of their most recent television ads is a good example of ‘stop campaigning’, with the message being ‘stop tanning because it’s unsafe’.
The environmental movement is a big fan of ‘stop campaigning’. The entire simple living movement is all about reducing one’s possessions, ecological footprint, energy usage etc. While it’s a message that works well with people who feel overwhelmed by modern day materialism and conspicuous consumption, there’s also the danger you’ll come off as a kill-joy.
Recently Emily and I launched ‘The Winter B-icicle Challenge‘, in which we encourage citizens around the world to bike to work or school every day throughout winter. We’ve employed ‘start campaigning’ and I guess the ‘stop campaigning’ equivalent would be World Carfree Day which asks drivers on September 22 to leave their vehicles at home.
While both the ‘Winter B-icicle Challenge’ and ‘World Carfree Day’ have similar goals: stop climate change by reducing the number of CO2 emitting cars on the road, the methods in which we achieve that goal is different. Our ‘start campaign’, I believe, is more fun, and much easier to create content or engagement with the challengers. But at the same time, it’s very specific (we exclude those who might walk or catch public transport) and the environmental messaging isn’t as clear as ‘World Carfree Day’.
In the end, as was the case with the SunSmart campaigns, you need both. You need people to reduce harmful activities (and know why they need to reduce) but they also need to be informed and encouraged to take up positive alternatives.
Positive vs negative messaging in campaigning
Posted: January 17, 2012 Filed under: BLOG | Tags: activism, campaigning, negative messaging, occupy wall street, positive messaging, poster Leave a comment »Here in activist land, we often talk about ‘positive vs negative messaging’.
Quit smoking ads and skin cancer ads almost always make use of ‘negative messaging’. Sad ads featuring puppies in the RSPCA or starving children in Africa are others examples. It appeals to people’s inborn fears – fear that they’ll die, fear of pain, fear of losing one loved ones, fear of poverty, fear that their life in undeservedly more comfortable than that of others. The hope here is that people become so sad, so guilt-ridden or so afraid that they’ll get up and do something.
It’s a powerful tool because it has the power to move people deeply, but it can be dangerous if overused. People can become ‘turned off’ and thus discouraged.
Environmentalists used negative messaging at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit. Their platform was “it’s now or never” and “this is our last change”. The sense of urgency was meant to instigate change. Of course, nothing miraculous happened at COP15. So with all their chips spent what were environmentalists to say at this year’s climate change talks in Durban? “Um, you know how we said Copenhagen was our last chance? Actually, THIS is our last chance. For reals this time.”
These days most campaigns try and use positive messaging. Positive messaging tries to inspire people to strive for a better and more beautiful world. One of the best examples must be the recent and incredibly successful GetUp! campaign ad. If you haven’t seen it yet, you really should.
It’s simple, beautifully made and leaves you feeling all gooey inside about how awesome love is. No wonder it’s garnered over four million views in less than two months. The campaign for marriage equality usually relies on ‘negative messaging’ – the tone is normally one of indignant anger, or sadness, about the injustice of a homophobic law that bans same-sex marriage. So I think this ad is unusual in that is uses ‘positive messaging’.
In truth, both positive and negative messaging have their place. (Note, when I use the word ‘negative’ that doesn’t mean bad, it’s just a technical term.) And sometimes great campaigns make use of both. Take the Occupy Wall Street poster:
The rioters at the bottom is ‘negative’ – they represent anger against an injustice system. But the ballerina is ‘positive’ – she inspires us to prevail and create something wonderful.
A peek into the office of Greenpeace Hong Kong
Posted: January 16, 2012 Filed under: BLOG | Tags: china, chinese environmentalists, environment, greenpeace, greenpeace east asia, greenpeace hong kong Leave a comment »I recently attended training at the Hong Kong branch of Greenpeace, and snapped some photos of my co-workers, who had also come from the Beijing and Taipei offices. The Hong Kong office is pretty funky – smooth concrete floor, open space office, big windows looking out over Hong Kong’s signature high rises. And the reception features a sculpture that spells out “anti-nuclear” in Chinese along with a stack of yellow nuclear cans.
The dude in the second photo, Miles, looks like the baddest mofo on the planet. But in reality is the gentlest most chilled guy I’ve ever met.
A lot of people are surprised when I tell them that the very large majority of staff in all the East Asia offices are locals, not foreigners. Yes, there are Chinese environmentalists, and they’re a very committed, talented and passionate bunch.
